THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 


The  popping"  of  corks  kept  time  to  the  cracking-  of 
jokes.     FRONTISPIECE.     See  Page  63 


BY 


PETER  CLARK  MACFARLANE 


ILLUSTRATED 


BOSTON 

LITTLE,  BROWN,  AND  COMPANY 
1914 


Copyright,  1914 
BY  LITTLE,  BROWN,  AND  COMPANY. 


All  rights  reserved 
Published,  October,  1914 


Printers 
8.  J.  PARKHILL  &  Co.,  BOSTON,  U.S.A. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I  BACK  FROM  MORPHIA  .......       1 

II  THE  UNMAKING  OF  A  BANK  BURGLAR  .      .     27 

III  A  MADONNA  FROM  WHITECHAPEL    .      .     •.     76 

IV  THE  CASE  OF  EYTINGE    .      .      .      .      .      .   107 

V  THE  RETURN  OF  "LUCKY  BALDWIN"     .      .131 

VI     THREE  WAYS  FROM  WHISKEY     .      .      .      .167 

VII     A  CHICAGO  WONDER-WORKER      ....   207 

VIII     "ALL  OF  IT"    .  .   287 


2137192   f 


The  popping  of   corks   kept   time   to   the 

cracking  of  jokes Frontispiece 

PAGE 

Each  was  distorted,  misshapen,  or  malformed  .  .  7 
He  fell  to  going  to  the  little  store  for  his  periodicals  103 
With  a  low  cry  he  leaped  forward 263 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE 
COME  BACK 

i 

BACK   FROM   MORPHIA 

WHEN  I  first  saw  this  woman  in  her  own  gar- 
den it  seemed  incredible  that  she  had  been  a  vic- 
tim of  morphine.  She  had  a  kind  of  regal 
beauty,  the  poise  of  fine  breeding,  the  compo- 
sure of  perfect  self-control.  The  strands  of  sil- 
ver in  her  dark  hair  did  not  necessarily  tell  the 
story  of  suffering,  but  at  times  the  arc  of  her 
lips  grew  hard,  her  eyes  narrowed,  her  face  be- 
came masklike.  The  years  when  she  lived  in 
the  horrible  unreal  world,  in  constant  fear  of 
being  taken  to  a  madhouse  whenever  a  friend 
took  her  abroad,  had  left  their  mark. 
This  is  her  story  as  she  told  it  to  me : 

To  begin  with,  I  suffered  from  periodical 
1 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

headaches.  They  had  heen  coming  since  I  was 
nine  years  old  and  each  attack  drove  me  almost 
insane.  Our  family  physician,  unable  to  find 
the  seat  of  the  trouble,  contented  himself  with 
treating  the  symptoms  by  giving  me  hypo- 
dermic injections  of  morphine.  I  thought 
those  injections  banished  the  pain,  but  I  now 
know  that  they  only  banished  my  ability  to  feel 
pain,  besides  which  they  taught  my  nerves  a 
new  sensation,  one  of  ease  and  restfulness,  a 
delicious  relaxation  that  was  as  unnatural  as  it 
was  unhealthful.  The  after  effect  of  this  re- 
laxation was  a  sense  of  compression,  contrac- 
tion, and  pain.  I  thought  that  was  the  after- 
math of  the  headache,  but  in  reality  it  was  the 
last  effect  of  the  morphine. 

In  time  this  periodical  administering  of  mor- 
phine created  a  genuine  drug  hunger  in  my 
veins  and  tissues.  In  short,  I  had  become  a 
dope  fiend  and  did  not  know  it.  I  had  been 
made  into  one  by  the  man  who  had  been  my 
physician  since  childhood.  To  be  sure,  I  blame 
him  for  nothing  but  ignorance ;  yet  is  not  igno- 
rance a  crime  in  a  physician  who  is  prescribing 

2 


BACK  FROM  MORPHIA 

habit  forming  drugs?  But  remember,  I  had 
never  yet  consciously  craved  morphine  or  taken 
it  deliberately. 

With  this  unsuspected  habit  burrowing 
deeper  and  deeper  into  my  life,  I  grew  to 
womanhood  and  married.  I  loved  my  husband 
and  my  children ;  I  loved  books  and  horses  and 
motoring.  I  belonged  to  clubs  and  a  church. 
I  had  an  interest  in  philanthropic  matters.  I 
gossiped,  I  danced,  I  played  golf.  Sometimes 
I  think  I  even  did  fancy-work.  Despite  the 
periodical  headaches,  I  lived  a  generally  active 
life  and  was  happy — yes,  I  think  I  may  say 
very  happy,  until  one  very  terrible  day  when 
a  great  tragedy  came  into  my  life. 

I  will  not  tell  you  what  it  was.  So  far  as 
I  can  judge  it  was  something  beyond  my  con- 
trol, something  for  which  I  had  no  responsibil- 
ity. And  yet  the  drug  may  have  been  the 
cause.  I  do  not  know.  It  was  one  of  those 
things  that  make  life  seem  worse  than  death, 
yet  which  places  death  beyond  one. 

The  one  uncontrollable  desire  was  to  drive 
it  from  my  mind,  to  forget.  I  turned  to 

3 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

morphine.  Up  to  that  day  I  felt  I  never  had 
taken  the  drug  voluntarily;  I  was  driven  to  it 
by  physical  illness,  not  to  soothe  my  mind. 
That  day  I  became  a  morphine  fiend. 

Slipping  out  of  the  house,  I  walked  into  a 
drug  store  and  purchased  my  first  vial  of  the 
tablets.  I  bought  it  as  unconcernedly  as  I 
would  have  bought  talcum  powder,  and  the 
druggist  sold  it  as  indifferently  as  if  it  had 
been  a  package  of  chewing  gum.  I  shall  al- 
ways remember  how  that  vial  stood  up  before 
my  eyes  on  the  little  inlaid  table  in  my  bou- 
doir, beside  which  I  sat  down  with  a  feeling 
indescribably  desperate. 

If  I  had  only  known!  Yet  I  can  be  honest 
enough  with  myself  to  confess  it  would  have 
been  no  use  to  tell  me.  I  was  doomed  already ! 
The  cells  of  my  body  had  been  taught  the  value 
— a  false  value,  but  the  cells  did  not  know  it 
was  false — of  the  drug  stimulus.  Now  in  this 
great  crisis  they  cried  out  for  morphine. 
When  I  needed  to  be  strongest  I  was  weakest. 
I  should  have  gone  to  God.  Instead  I  went  to 
an  apothecary.  I  turned  from  the  source  of 


BACK  FROM  MORPHIA 

all  spiritual  strength  to  look  upon  a  drug  in  a 
bottle. 

After  a  long  time,  a  very  long  time,  I  opened 
the  vial  and  swallowed  a  grain  of  morphine. 
That  act  was  my  first  deliberate  concurrence 
in  the  habit. 

I  need  not  tell  any  user  of  the  drug  what  a 
delicious  sense  of  satisfaction  and  security, 
what  a  glorious  confidence  in  the  successful 
treatment  of  all  the  ills  which  threatened  my 
life,  came  with  the  effects  of  that  first  grain. 
My  mental  processes  were  "speeded  up" 
amazingly.  I  was  as  strong  as  twenty  women. 
I  could  endure  anything.  I  could  conquer 
anything.  There  was  not  a  horror,  there  was 
not  a  torture,  a  dread,  a  laceration  of  my  heart, 
that  could  not  be  overmastered.  Minute  by 
minute  I  mounted  on  pinions  of  hope.  I 
soared  like  the  eagle  into  the  eye  of  the  sun. 
The  world  grew  brighter  and  brighter. 

That  was  the  ascending,  stimulating  curve 
of  the  drug  effect;  but  it  was  succeeded  by  a 
much  longer  and  more  precipitous  curve  of  de- 
pression. Presently  it  seemed  as  if  the  light 

5 


were  failing.  The  sky  became  overcast.  I 
made  the  horrible  discovery  that  I  was  no 
longer  mounting  but  descending — falling 
faster  and  faster  into  an  abyss  that  became 
grayer  and  grayer,  darker  and  darker,  blacker 
and  blacker.  A  chill  of  fright  and  terror 
seized  me.  The  sun  had  become  a  fading  star 
whose  rays  were  faint  and  cold  and  far  away. 
And  still  I  continued  to  fall.  I  looked  down 
into  the  blackness.  Was  there  no  bottom? 
When  my  eyes  turned  skyward  again  even  the 
fading  star  was  gone.  The  abyss  above  was  as 
black  as  the  abyss  beneath.  I  screamed  in 
terror.  I  prayed  that  the  fall  might  end — 
end,  even  though  my  body  were  to  be  dashed  to 
pieces  upon  some  uncharted  ledge  of  those  hor- 
rible depths  of  despair  whi<&  were  being  so 
swiftly  sounded.  I  longed  for  the  crash.  I 
knew  it  must  come. 

There  was  no  crash.  My  soul  was  at  poise 
in  the  midst  of  black  and  impenetrable  gloom. 
A  horrible  sense  that  I  was  not  alone  came  to 
me.  Great  wings  of  velvety  softness  brushed 
by  me.  Hands  and  faces  and  forms  outlined 

6 


Each  was  distorted,  misshapen,  or  malformed. 
Page  7 


BACK  FROM  MORPHIA 

in  a  dull  phosphorescent  glow  limned  them- 
selves in  the  darkness.  There  were  voices  too, 
with  song  and  laughter,  and  the  music  of  my 
own  piano.  I  recognized  its  tones  well.  And 
the  voices  and  the  faces,  the  hands  and  the 
forms  were  all  familiar  to  me.  But  each  was 
distorted,  misshapen,  or  malformed.  Even 
the  musical  voices  of  my  children  had  become 
a  succession  of  horrible  croaking  gutturals. 
And  all  of  those  who  should  have  loved  me, 
who,  indeed,  outside  that  drug-induced  night- 
mare did  love  me,  were  in  it,  combining  to  tor- 
ture and  betray  me  as  that  very  morning  I  had 
been  betrayed. 

But  it  was  a  million  times  worse  than  the 
reality.  Yet  there  was  no  escape.  I  became 
strangely  conscious  of  my  limbs.  They  felt  as 
if  overlaid  with  chains  that  held  me  down. 
But  the  situation  cleared  a  little.  I  saw  there 
were  no  chains.  It  was  the  tautening  of  my 
nerves,  when  the  relaxing  effect  of  the  drug 
passed  off,  that  made  them  feel  like  wires  that 
were  being  pulled  upon  and  turned  my  limbs 
into  restless,  twitching,  insurgent  members  of 

7 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

my  body.  I  tried  to  speak  calmly  to  myself 
but  my  throat  was  dry  and  furred.  I  could 
make  no  comprehensible  sound  but  only  hor- 
rible croakings  like  the  actors  on  my  abysmal 
stage. 

Presently  I  became  conscious  of  a  strange 
tall  column  of  violet  light,  very  far  away.  It 
was  a  thousand  feet  tall.  It  split  the  gloom 
queerly.  It  was  advancing  and,  surprising  to 
say,  as  it  drew  nearer  it  grew  smaller.  After 
a  time  it  assumed  human  proportions  and  wore 
a  tall  hat,  but  was  without  limbs  or  features. 
It  walked  upon  my  dream  stage.  It  threaded 
its  way  among  the  actors.  It  came  down  to 
the  footlights  and  stopped.  It  gazed  at  me 
steadily.  I  returned  the  gaze,  fascinated.  A 
film  seemed  to  come  and  go  over  my  eyes  and 
suddenly  I  sat  up  with  a  gasp  of  surprise. 
The  dream  was  gone — the  figures  on  the  stage 
were  gone,  but  the  column  of  crystal  light  re- 
mained and,  lo,  it  was  standing  upon  the  little 
inlaid  ivory  table  in  my  boudoir,  which  I  had 
never  left.  It  was  the  morphine  vial ! 

I  seized  it,  emptied  out  a  tablet  and  swal- 
8 


BACK  FROM  MORPHIA 

lowed  it,  closed  my  eyes  and  leaned  back.  To 
my  consternation  the  dream  returned.  The 
darkness,  the  phosphorescent  shapes,  the 
laughter,  the  ribaldries,  the  vulgar  distortions 
of  character  were  all  there.  But  I  was  able  to 
laugh  at  them ;  I  had  found  a  new  strength.  I 
had  my  woman's  heaven.  At  least  I  thought 
I  had.  But  that  was  my  mistake — a  morphine 
mistake! 

For  ten  years  after  I  never  saw  reality, 
never  saw  the  facts  of  my  life  in  the  white  sun- 
light of  truth,  never  knew  exactly  what  real 
trouble  and  what  real  joy  I  had.  Everything 
was  exaggerated.  Every  impression,  every 
conception,  every  judgment  was  colored  by  a 
druggish  ecstasy  or  despondency.  My  loved 
ones  seemed  always  more  lovely  or  more  hate- 
ful than  they  were;  my  home  seemed  either 
happier  or  more  awful,  my  business  affairs 
much  more  promising  or  infinitely  more  disas- 
trous than  was  the  actuality. 

Now  as  I  read  back  over  what  I  have  writ- 
ten I  cannot  be  sure  that  it  is  correctly  orien- 
tated. Experiences  of  later  years,  horribles 

9 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

and  phantasms  of  other  debauches,  may  have 
been  cast  backward  into  that  one.  It  may  be 
that  I  did  not  in  the  first  month  or  the  first  year 
sink  to  the  lowest  depths  or  realize  all  the  de- 
tails there  portrayed.  But  the  succeeding 
years  have  destroyed  perspective  and  propor- 
tion. I  only  know  that  the  day  soon  came 
when  no  amount  of  the  drug  was  sufficient  to 
give  me  again  that  brief  ambrosial  sip  of 
heaven.  The  largest  dose  was  no  more  than 
enough  to  keep  me  from  slipping  into  the  steep- 
est pits  of  hell.  Nor  could  I  exist  at  all  with- 
out the  drug.  I  had  become  its  slave.  This 
was  an  appalling  fact  when  it  dawned  upon  me. 
I  could  not  stop  taking  morphine.  Nor  was  it 
alone  because  of  the  mental  horrors  which  at- 
tacked me  as  its  effect  wore  off.  The  physical 
depression  which  attended  was  equally  unbear- 
able. Sickening  weakness  overtook  me.  My 
pores  sweated  and  my  eyes  streamed,  while  ex- 
cruciating pains  racked  my  body.  By  acquir- 
ing the  habit,  I  had  condemned  myself  to  these 
tortures  through  life. 

Every  addict  of  morphine  or  any  of  its  vari- 
10 


BACK  FROM  MORPHIA 

ant  forms — codeine  or  heroin — will  agree  with 
me  that  I  have  utterly  failed,  as  any  pen  must 
fail,  to  portray  the  sufferings,  the  depressions, 
the  horrible  imaginings,  the  physical  weakness 
and  pain,  the  utter  loss  of  faith  in  one's  self,  in 
one's  friends  and  indeed  in  God's  whole  uni- 
verse, that  attend  upon  the  downward  stroke  of 
the  morphine  curve. 

However,  I  break  off  here  any  elaborate  at- 
tempt to  describe  subjectively  the  effects  of 
morphine  upon  my  mind.  Let  it  only  be  said 
that  on  one  certain  day  twelve  years  ago  I 
sought  refuge  from  a  disagreeable  experience 
existing  outside  of  me  by  introducing  into  the 
tissues  of  my  own  body  an  element  which  had 
powers  of  mischief  sufficient  to  multiply  a  hun- 
dredfold the  evil  results  of  the  thing  I  fled 
from. 

It  may  be  that  the  reader  is  surprised  by  the 
absence  of  any  reference  to  the  hypodermic 
needle.  I  did  not  use  the  needle.  The  idea  of 
it  was  repulsive  to  me.  I  know  the  great  ma- 
jority of  morphine  addicts  do  use  it.  There 
are  things  to  be  said  for  the  needle.  It  works 

11 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

quickly.  The  drug  is  immediately  admitted  to 
the  circulation  and  the  effects  are  obtained  in  a 
shorter  time.  Besides  it  is  more  economical. 
Half  the  quantity  of  morphine  taken  through 
the  mouth  will  give  the  same  effect  if  injected 
hypodermically. 

People  who  take  morphine  hypodermically 
get  the  needle  habit.  They  become  very  ex- 
pert and  develop  a  kind  of  exquisite  artistry  in 
the  handling  of  these  instruments.  With  as 
much  grace  as  one  is  supposed  to  smoke  or  to 
sip  wine,  these  gourmets  of  the  needle  will  in- 
sert the  steel  point  in  their  flesh  and  consume  a 
whole  half  hour  in  withdrawing  it.  They  will 
be  engaged  in  conversation,  laughing  and  jok- 
ing, with  their  minds  apparently  farthest  from 
the  tiny  tube  in  their  hands,  yet  all  the  while  by 
the  most  delicate  and  steady  pressure  they  are 
slowly  injecting  the  drug  into  their  veins  and 
extracting  the  needle  from  their  flesh. 

Ugh !  The  very  thought  is  loathsome.  Be- 
sides, sometimes  there  are  scars.  Of  course 
that  is  usually  from  uncleanliness,  and  often 
from  injections  in  breast  or  arms  where  the 

12 


BACK  FROM  MORPHIA 

needle  is  thrust  through  the  clothing  and  be- 
comes infected  by  it. 

But  there  are  other  objections  to  the  needle. 
It  is  bothersome.  The  addict  must  always 
carry  a  spoon  to  heat  water  in  which  to  dissolve 
the  tablets  and  must  have  fire  to  heat  the  spoon. 
A  gas  jet  is  not  always  available.  It  is  incon- 
venient and  irritating  to  have  to  burn  a  whole 
box  of  matches,  three  or  four  at  a  time,  under 
the  bowl  of  the  spoon  at  a  moment  when  the 
nerves  are  a-rack  and  the  whole  system  is  clam- 
oring for  the  drug. 

But  even  if  these  conditions  can  be  met,  they 
are  burdensome,  considering  that  the  average 
addict  must  have  the  drug  at  least  four  times  a 
day — one  of  these  times  being  just  before  re- 
tiring. 

But  to  return  to  my  own  experience.  Mor- 
phine does  not  give  pleasure.  It  creates  pain. 
This  is  its  ultimate  and  positive  effect.  The 
pleasure  it  is  supposed  to  produce  is  a  mere 
temporary  form  of  anesthesia.  The  exhilarat- 
ing effect  is  the  first  thrill  of  pain  vibrating  so 
rapidly  one  does  not  recognize  it  as  such.  Let 

13 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

that  be  written  in  letters  as  tall  as  the  moun- 
tains. Morphine  is  a  pain  producer.  Mor- 
phine is  a  nerve  destroyer.  It  weakens  the 
will.  It  disrupts  the  foundations  of  the 
mind. 

After  five  years  another  blow  fell.  Busi- 
ness reverses  overtook  the  family.  Servants 
and  our  home,  my  husband's  business  and  his 
business  capacity  all  melted  away.  The  en- 
tire responsibility  devolved  upon  me. 

I  have  always  been  a  woman  of  pride  and 
self-respect,  as  well  as  of  strong  affections.  I 
had  well-to-do  relatives  who  would  provide  for 
us.  There  were  many  who  would  gladly  have 
taken  our  beautiful  children.  But  I  did  not 
purpose  to  become  a  dependent,  nor  to  see  my 
family  broken  up.  I  was  willing  to  accept 
help,  but  only  of  the  sort  that  would  help  me  to 
help  myself. 

In  such  circumstances,  to  the  confirmed  drug 
fiend,  nothing  remained  but  more  morphine. 
I  took  more  morphine.  I  tried  to  keep  myself 
soaring  all  the  time.  I  lived  in  a  morphine  sun- 
light. I  faced  my  responsibilities  with  a  mor- 

14 


BACK  FROM  MORPHIA 

phine  courage  and  went  about  my  daily  round 
of  duties  with  a  morphine  strength. 

I  took  my  dependent  ones  with  me  and  be- 
came the  manager  of  a  mountain  resort  hotel 
in  a  Western  state.  The  place,  in  addition  to 
its  regular  run  of  patronage,  was  a  house  of  call 
for  motor  parties.  Sometimes  there  were 
three  such  parties  to  take  care  of  after  dinner 
in  the  evening  and  sometimes  there  were  a 
dozen.  I  looked  personally  after  the  comfort 
of  my  guests.  I  saw  to  every  detail.  I  did 
my  own  marketing.  I  closed  the  hotel  at  night 
after  the  last  party  had  gone,  perhaps  at  two  or 
three  o'clock  in  the  morning.  At  six  o'clock  of 
that  same  morning  I  would  be  up  and  on  my 
way  to  the  market.  Month  after  month  I  did 
this,  my  strength  sustained  by  morphine  and 
coffee.  The  number  of  waking  hours  I  spent 
in  each  day  and  the  number  of  grains  of  mor- 
phine I  took  to  keep  awake  and  keep  going  are 
both  so  large  that  I  scruple  to  set  them  down. 

But  there  came  a  crisis  which  stands  out  as 
the  supreme  moment  of  horror  in  all  those  ten 
years  of  my  sojourn  in  Morphia.  It  is  an  in- 

15 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

cident  of  which  I  can  hardly  bring  myself  to 
write.  And  yet — shall  I  tell  you?  Yes,  no? 
Well,  that  you  may  know  the  bald  truth,  just 
this  much:  I  took  my  own  life!  Yes,  delib- 
erately I  widowed  my  husband! — I  orphaned 
my  children !  I  took  morphine  enough  to  kill. 
The  act  was  complete  and  irrevocable — by  me. 
I  sank  into  the  stupor  from  which  I  should 
never  wake.  But  my  faithful  sister  discovered 
my  act  in  time.  A  doctor,  by  telephone,  di- 
rected her  to  the  precipitate  action  which  undid 
my  own  self-murder  and  restored  me  to  life 
and  suffering.  Now  I  praise  my  sister  for 
that  act.  Then  I  reproached  her  bitterly. 

A  few  days  later  I  realized  for  a  short  time 
at  least  the  enormity  of  my  sin,  but  it  was  some- 
thing very  different  which  showed  me  the  thing 
I  was  becoming.  It  was  the  sight  of  myself — 
in  the  mirror,  after  another  debauch,  a  gibber- 
ing, shriveling,  eye-starting  idiot! — and  back 
of  my  image  in  the  mirror,  as  they  stood  back 
of  me  in  the  door  of  the  room,  my  two  sunny- 
haired  children.  On  their  faces  was  mingled 
affection,  surprise,  pity,  and  terror.  My  chil- 

16 


BACK  FROM  MORPHIA 

dren  whom  I  loved  were  gazing  at  their  mother, 
and  at  the  apparition  of  her  face  they  were 
frightened.  Those  startled,  innocent  eyes 
aroused  me  as  I  think  nothing  else  had  up  to 
that  time.  Yet  that,  after  all,  was  merely  an 
awakening,  nothing  more. 

But  do  you  think  there  were  no  others?  Do 
you  think  there  were  no  remorses,  no  resolu- 
tions, no  battlings,  no  nights  of  sobbing  and 
days  of  ravings  when,  with  all  the  strength  of 
my  woman's  being,  I  resolved  that  the  drug 
should  never  again  cross  my  lips?  Oh,  yes, 
there  were  many  of  these. 

Do  you  think  my  friends  never  chided  me? 
That  my  loved  ones  never  appealed  to  me? 
Do  you  think  my  conscience  never  found  me? 
That  the  strength,  the  sympathy  of  good  men 
and  women  was  not  often  extended  to  me  with 
messages  of  counsel  and  the  command  to  hope? 

Yes,  all  these  experiences  and  stimuluses 
were  mine.  No  woman  ever  had  truer,  kinder, 
more  helpful  and  sympathetic  friends.  Mine 
never  failed  me  at  any  stage  of  my  steadily 
sinking  fortunes.  But  none  of  these  things 

17 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

availed.  At  the  end  of  each  abstinence  I  sur- 
rendered. At  the  end  of  each  prolonged  battle 
I  succumbed  a  little  more  helplessly,  a  little 
more  abjectly  to  the  gloomy  monster  that 
dominated  my  life. 

I  now  know  there  was  a  reason  for  this  that 
it  was  not  within  the  power  of  my  will  to  eradi- 
cate. The  drug  taken  in  such  quantities  and 
with  such  periodicity  for,  not  including  the 
headache  hypodermics,  twenty-five  years  had 
rehabitated  my  body.  A  moderately  normal 
physiological  life  was  no  more  possible  to  me 
without  morphine  than  a  diet  without  salt 
would  be  to  anyone. 

The  time  came  when  I  could  no  longer  man- 
age the  hotel.  It  went  away  from  me,  or  I 
went  away  from  it.  Those  things  are  hazy.  I 
do  not  care  to  remember  them.  I  can  only  tell 
you  this:  I  kept  on  fighting.  I  kept  my 
family  together.  I  kept  them  around  me.  I 
meant  to  try  to  provide  for  them  so  long  as  the 
natural  faculties  held  any  sort  of  place  in  my 
brain.  And  I  kept  up  the  battle  against  mor- 
phine. I  actually  began  to  gain  upon  the  drug. 

18 


BACK  FROM  MORPHIA 

The  wise  sympathy  and  cooperation  of  my 
mother  and  sisters  were  very  helpful.  They 
kept  my  tablets  for  me.  They  helped 
strengthen  my  weakening  will.  By  coopera- 
tion we  reduced  the  total  consumption,  which 
had  been  very  large ;  but  there  was  nothing  like 
a  cure,  no  prospect  of  overcoming.  To  shut 
off  the  supply  of  morphine  was  to  send  me  to 
the  madhouse. 

But,  just  as  I  was  recognizing  the  hopeless- 
ness of  the  fight,  just  as  I  was  considering 
whether  I  should  not  stop  fighting  altogether 
and  give  myself  up  to  one  orgy  of  dreams  after 
another  until  death  of  body  or  of  mind  should 
come,  a  message  of  hope  was  flashed  to  me.  I 
heard  of  a  treatment  which,  it  was  said,  would 
in  a  few  days  break  that  fatal  affinity  between 
my  body  and  the  drug  which  was  ruining  me. 
They  told  me  this  treatment,  lasting  five  or  ten 
days,  would  absolutely  eradicate  any  desire  or 
affinity  for  morphine.  And — will  you  believe 
it? — I  was  afraid  to  take  such  a  treatment!  I 
was  afraid  to  have  my  morphine  hunger  taken 
from  me. 

19 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

For  ten  years  the  drug  dreams  had  been  the 
most  real  part  of  my  life.  Now  if  I  took  a 
new  drug  that  cast  out  this  other  drug,  the  very 
form  and  habit  of  my  mental  life  would  also  be 
cast  out.  What,  then,  would  remain?  Any- 
thing? For  ten  years  scarcely  an  impulse, 
scarcely  an  impression,  hardly  an  activity  of  my 
life  but  was  conceived,  colored,  influenced,  or 
carried  out  under  the  stimulus  of  morphine. 
The  real  "me"  had  gone  long  ago.  Only  the 
morphine  "me"  remained.  If  I  should  drive 
out  the  drug  "me,"  would  the  real  "me"  return 
or  revive  ?  Will  you  believe  me  if  I  write  that 
when  I  thought  of  taking  a  treatment  that 
would  slay  my  morphine  self  I  felt  like  one  who 
contemplates  self-murder,  much  more  than 
when  a  year  before  I  did  the  act  of  self- 
murder? 

But  I  have  always  been  a  fighter.  The 
fruits  of  victory,  if  I  could  win  this  battle,  were 
too  great  for  me  to  hesitate  long.  I  dared  the 
issue.  It  was  on  the  day  before  Christmas. 
My  allotment  of  morphine  for  the  day  was 
given  me  as  usual  by  my  mother  and  sister. 

20 


BACK  FROM  MORPHIA 

At  five  o'clock  I  bade  them  good-by  at  the  door 
of  the  hospital. 

What  passed  behind  those  doors  I  was 
doubtless  in  no  condition  to  observe  or  write 
down  in  memory.  I  know  that  medicines  were 
given  to  me. 

I  know  that  one  day  a  strange  face  appeared 
at  my  bedside,  the  face  of  a  man  who  had  no 
connection  with  the  staff  of  the  institution. 
He  was  a  physician  from  the  great  city  outside. 
I  don't  know  why  he  came,  nor  what  he  did  for 
me,  if  anything.  But  this  I  do  know :  he  made 
an  impression  that  was  vastly  important  later; 
and  that  without  him  perhaps  I  should  not  be 
writing  this  story. 

At  the  end  of  two  weeks  my  mother  and  sis- 
ter came  to  the  hospital  and  took  me  away.  I 
had  no  longer  the  slightest  desire  for  morphine 
but  was  filled  with  a  thousand  fears  and  mis- 
givings. There  was  still  a  fire  in  my  veins, 
though  it  was  not  a  drug  hunger. 

As  I  was  leaving  the  institution  the  superin- 
tendent struck  me  a  blow — not  with  his  hands 
but  with  his  tongue.  He  said : 

21 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

"Madam,  I  never  want  to  hear  of  you  again. 
You  are  cured  of  any  physical  craving  for  mor- 
phine. That  is  all  I  undertook  to  do.  If 
there  is  character  enough  in  you  to  go  on  now 
to  a  life  of  self-control,  your  reformation  will 
be  complete.  If  not,  it  is  probable  that  you 
will  in  sheer  restlessness  and  for  want  of  some- 
thing to  occupy  your  mind  go  back  to  the  drug. 
In  that  event  it  will  be  useless  to  come  to  me. 
You  will  have  damned  yourself  into  a  hell 
where  I  cannot  reach  you." 

There  was  yet  one  more  fight  to  make — and 
this  was  the  most  desperate,  dangerous  hour  in 
my  whole  struggle  with  the  drug.  Anything 
was  better  than  this  awful  vacancy,  this  help- 
less incapacity.  I  was  cured  but  not  corrected. 
The  rebellion  had  been  put  down  but  I  was  not 
yet  reconstructed. 

Then  I  thought  of  the  physician  from  the 
town  who  had  visited  me  in  the  institution.  I 
went  to  him.  He  understood.  He  told  me  to 
stop  thinking  of  myself  as  abnormal  or  disor- 
dered or  as  a  woman  with  an  experience.  He 
told  me  to  take  up  my  responsibilities  as  if  I 

22 


BACK  FROM  MORPHIA 

were  well.  He  bade  me  keep  my  mind  busy 
with  objective  tasks  rather  than  intellectual 
puzzles.  To  insure  this  he  gave  me  a  little  plan 
for  the  day:  what  I  must  do  at  nine  o'clock  and 
ten  o'clock,  and  three  and  four,  and  so  on.  He 
helped  me  to  fill  my  life  so  full  that  there  was 
not  room  for  the  devils  of  doubt  and  mischance. 

In  six  weeks  I  was  almost  a  normal  woman. 
To-day,  I  am  a  normal  woman.  It  is  two  years 
since  that  Christmas  eve  when  I  entered  the 
hospital.  In  these  two  years  no  morphine  has 
crossed  my  lips.  No  craving  for  it  has  ever  re- 
turned. If  it  should  return,  if  the  day  should 
come  when  it  seems  that  I  must  have  morphine 
or  die,  I  shall  die.  But  that  day,  I  feel  sure, 
will  never  come.  The  appetite  has  been  taken 
away  and  I  have  recaptained  and  rerigged  the 
drifting  derelict  the  morphine  habit  made  of 
me. 

Shall  I  tell  you  how  I  realized  that  I  was 
cured?  I  had  been  getting  better  and  better 
without  comprehending  that  I  was  well. 
They  sent  for  me  at  the  hospital  to  come  and 
see  a  patient,  a  woman  who  had  taken  the  treat- 

23 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

ment,  and  was  feeling  rebellious  and  hope- 
less. 

The  poor  little  thing!  The  morphine  pallor 
was  on  her  face.  She  was  mere  skin  and  bones. 
Her  hands  twitched  and  tossed  upon  the 
coverlet,  which  was  no  whiter  than  they.  Her 
whole  body  trembled.  Her  eyes  were  the  eyes 
of  a  hunted,  helpless  animal.  She  looked  up  at 
me  and  said,  "Oh,  I  want  to  leave  this  place. 
I  want  to  get  away  from  here.  I  never — " 

"My  dear,"  I  exclaimed,  breaking  in  upon 
her  speech  as  I  remembered  the  psychological 
value  of  the  superintendent's  brusqueness,  "I 
was  once  in  this  house,  in  this  room,  in  this  very 
bed !  I  was  worse,  much  worse,  than  you  are ! 
I  took  this  treatment  faithfully,  I  fought  my 
convalescence  battle  and  I  am  well.  You  are 
not  true  to  your  own  womanhood  if  you  will 
not  do  the  same." 

She  closed  her  eyes  and  then  opened  them 
again  with  a  dizzy  start  of  surprise,  and  looked 
me  over  with  mingled  doubt  and  astonishment. 
I  knew  I  looked  well.  I  knew  my  cheeks  were 
full  and  rosy.  I  knew  that  there  in  that  room 

24 


BACK  FROM  MORPHIA 

of  weakness  and  pain  I  really  was  the  very  im- 
age and  incarnation  of  health. 

"Do  you  mean  to  say  that  you  were  once 
worse  than  I,  and  that  I  can  be  as  well  as  you  if 
I  take  this  treatment  and  patiently  build  my- 
self up  after  it  is  over?"  she  asked  with  such  a 
quick,  eager  utterance  that  she  got  her  long 
question  all  into  one  breath. 

"Yes,  yes,"  I  urged  earnestly. 

The  little  thing  had  half  risen  on  her  pillow. 
"Then,"  she  whispered,  with  a  look  of  deter- 
mination, "I — I  will  do  it!" 

If  she  had  doubted  me,  I  should  have 
doubted  myself.  But  when  I  saw  her  inspired 
by  my  appearance  to  fight  her  own  battle,  I 
knew  that  I  was  well.  I  left  that  hospital,  I 
tripped  down  those  steps  and  out  upon  the 
walk,  as  if  on  air.  No  drug  ecstasy  in  all  my 
life  had  ever  equaled  the  rapture  of  that  mo- 
ment. I  had  not  only  gained  my  own  victory 
but  I  had  helped  another  woman  to  gain  hers. 

To-day  no  words  can  portray  the  sober  yet 
exultant  joy  which  I  feel  because  of  my  vic- 
tories over  the  morphine  habit.  I  am  like  a  pil- 

25 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

grim  who  has  returned.  Ten  years  of  my  life 
are  a  frightful  dream.  It  is  a  horrid  journey 
which  I  have  traveled  alone,  as  daily  I  sunk  into 
its  depths,  and  now  I  am  back  again. 


26 


II 

THE   UNMAKING  OF   A  BANK  BURGLAR 

No  man  is  born  a  bank  burglar.  At  the  same 
time  one  can  usually  understand  the  operation 
of  the  processes  by  which  he  becomes  one;  but 
with  Richard  Watson  the  greatest  difficulty 
appears  to  be  to  understand  the  processes  by 
which  he  ceased  to  be  one. 

Watson's  father  died  when  he  was  little  more 
than  an  infant;  consequently  his  mother,  who 
was  a  graduate  of  Wellesley  College  and  a  re- 
fined and  capable  woman,  became  his  chief  as- 
set in  life,  but  unfortunately  she  also  died  while 
her  boy  was  young — fourteen  years  of  age — 
leaving  the  child  heir  to  a  nice  property  and  a 
group  of  avaricious  relatives  who,  considerately 
— for  themselves — put  young  Dick  away  in  a 
private  institution  for  bothersome  boys,  while 
a  guardianship  made  drakes  and  other  things 
of  the  estate. 

27 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

But  the  important  element  at  this  juncture 
was  not  the  dissipation  of  the  estate,  since 
young  Watson  himself  ultimately  completed 
that  process  with  the  same  effectiveness  that  a 
housemaid  flicks  away  that  final  trace  of  sweep- 
ing which  refuses  to  be  either  cogged  or  cozened 
into  the  dust-pan.  The  really  important  thing 
was  the  manner  in  which  this  institution,  re- 
formatory in  name  hut  not  in  character,  dissi- 
pated the  morals  of  young  Dick.  The  influ- 
ences in  it  were  mostly  bad;  the  instructions 
and  some  of  the  instructors  were  bad ;  the  dis- 
cipline was  capricious  and  cruel;  the  food  was 
coarse,  scant  and  illy-prepared.  Hypocrisy 
was  the  only  diet  of  which  there  seemed  ever 
too  much,  and  Dick  Watson  proved  no  rules 
by  making  himself  an  exception.  He  walked 
in  the  front  gates  a  reasonably  good  boy.  He 
sneaked  out  the  back  way  at  midnight  three 
years  later  with  cunning  and  deceit  ingrained 
in  his  soul — so  much  so,  indeed,  that  when  he 
was  captured  and  returned  he  bettered  the  in- 
struction of  his  masters  in  hypocrisy  by  devis- 
ing a  plan  which  secured  his  honorable  dis- 

28 


THE  UNMAKING  OF  A  BURGLAR 

charge  upon  forged  letters  supposed  to  come 
from  relatives  and  others. 

Having  received  this  vigorous  shove  in  the 
wrong  direction  in  the  very  years  when  life  was 
gathering  its  greatest  momentum,  Watson  pro- 
ceeded to  develop  bad  qualities  with  bewilder- 
ing rapidity.  The  most  sinister  of  these  was  a 
weakness  for  women.  Indeed,  Watson's  en- 
tire career  has  been  powerfully  influenced  by 
women,  some  of  whom  were  good,  but  most  of 
whom  were  bad.  Before  he  had  been  out  of  the 
reformatory  a  year,  and  while  still  a  youth,  he 
became  involved  in  a  love  affair  with  a  woman 
of  the  wrong  sort. 

About  the  same  time,  impetuous  and  in- 
genious, he  managed  by  cajoleries  of  one 
sort  and  another  to  get  from  his  relatives  in 
cash  the  equivalent  of  what  remained  to  him 
from  his  mother's  estate.  He  spent  this 
money  riotously,  the  scarlet  woman  helping,  in 
one  wild  underworld  orgy  after  another. 
When  it  was  gone  the  last  vestige  of  Watson's 
moral  character  appears  to  have  gone  also,  for 
he  was  contented  thereafter  to  live  upon  the 

29 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

disgraceful  earnings  of  the  woman  he  loved 
with  boyish  ardor. 

From  here  the  next  step,  which  was  into 
crime,  appears  to  have  been  taken  without 
compunction.  A  breach  with  his  paramour 
left  him  temporarily  without  funds  and  he 
struck  up  a  partnership  with  an  experienced 
burglar.  Watson  was  slightly  under  size, 
quick  of  movement  and  without  fear.  The 
burglar  "staked"  him  for  a  few  days  and  on  the 
first  rainy  night  they  went  out  to  loot  a  house 
which  had  been  "marked.'*  The  old  hand  held 
the  umbrella  over  Dick  and  slipped  him 
through  a  window.  He  went  upstairs,  saw 
a  man  asleep,  got  a  "leather"  from  his 
trousers  and  two  rings  from  a  dressing-table. 
In  another  room  he  found  a  casket  of  jewels. 
With  these  he  slipped  out  to  his  waiting  pal, 
and  they  made  an  easy  escape. 

In  those  days  a  minor  could  pawn  nothing 
in  Boston  and  Dick  had  to  trust  his  partner  to 
dispose  of  the  whole  swag.  There  being  no 
honor  between  these  two  particular  thieves,  the 
older  man  not  only  beat  Dick  out  of  his  share, 

30 


but  shook  hands  with  him  very  ostentatiously 
a  few  days  later  in  the  back  room  of  a  saloon, 
whereupon  a  plain  clothes  man  stepped  up, 
tapped  Dick  on  the  shoulder  and  said:  "I 
want  you." 

But  immediately  again  a  woman  touched  his 
life — and  this  time  a  good  one.  She  was  a  per- 
son of  independent  means  who,  while  interest- 
ing herself  in  the  reforming  of  criminals,  came 
in  contact  with  young  Watson  when  he  was  in 
jail  awaiting  trial.  He,  as  much  sinned 
against  as  sinning,  so  far  as  this  burglary  was 
concerned,  was  moved  by  her  appeals  and  re- 
solved to  reform.  She  in  turn  was  moved  by 
his  protestations,  and  secured  his  release  on 
bail. 

But  Dick's  repentance  was  of  brief  survival. 
The  sight  of  a  country-looking  man  on  Boston 
Common  with  one  bulging  pocket  excited  his 
cupidity.  He  trailed  the  man  into  a  saloon 
and  relieved  him  of  his  watch  and  money,  only 
to  be  arrested  with  the  stolen  articles  still  in  his 
possession. 

The  judge  before  whom  the  young  man  was 
31 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

tried  for  this  offense  was  advanced  in  years. 
After  a  few  formalities  Dick  stood  up  and  this 
old  gray-headed  man  sentenced  the  boy  not  yet 
twenty-one  to  two  years  and  six  months  in  the 
House  of  Correction.  Perhaps  that  was  a  per- 
fectly square  deal,  but  Dick  had  a  feeling  that 
it  was  not.  By  some  odd  conceit  he  resented 
the  gray-headedness  of  his  judge.  This  re- 
sentment increased  when  he  found  that  the 
term  House  of  Correction  was  a  horrible  mis- 
nomer. 

The  place  was  a  prison  pen  of  the  worst  type. 
The  superintendence  was  brutal.  The  lock- 
step  was  in  vogue.  The  sanitary  conditions 
were  enough  to  make  beasts  of  angels.  The 
rules  were  strict.  Work  was  measured  out  in 
"tasks."  Slight  infractions  of  the  rules  or  fail- 
ure to  do  the  daily  stint,  brought  three  days  in 
one  of  the  solitary  cells.  These  "solitaries" 
were  unbelievably  inhuman.  There  were  four 
of  them  and  they  were  in  almost  constant  use. 
Each  was  four  feet  wide  by  eight  long.  There 
were  two  doors,  both  of  steel,  one  as  jointless 
as  the  door  of  a  safe,  the  other  an  equally  blank 

32 


THE  UNMAKING  OF  A  BURGLAR 

wall  of  steel  except  that  near  the  bottom  twelve 
circular  holes  as  large  as  one's  finger  were  bored 
for  air.  In  the  cell  was  a  board,  a 
bucket,  a  blanket  and  a  small  block  of  wood. 
In  lieu  of  a  pillow  the  block  of  wood  could  be 
placed  under  the  plank,  thus  making  the  bed 
higher  at  one  end.  There  was  a  sliding  trap  in 
the  safe-like  door  through  which  once  in  every 
twenty-four  hours  one  ounce  of  bread  and 
one  gill  of  water  were  passed.  It  was  not 
till  he  went  into  the  solitary  that  Watson 
found  out  how  little  bread  it  takes  to  make 
one  ounce,  and  how  little  water  to  make  one 
gill. 

Into  these  dungeons  men  went  for  from  three 
to  ten  days.  Each  morning  the  doctor  passed 
and  called  "Hello,"  through  the  little  round 
air-holes  at  the  bottom  of  the  door.  If  he  got 
an  answer  he  went  on  his  way.  If  no  reply 
came  he  stopped  and  investigated.  It  was  not 
unusual  that  perfectly  sane  men  were  put  into 
these  solitaries  and  hopeless  maniacs  were  taken 
out  of  them. 

Naturally  the  House  of  Correction  did  not 
33 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

have  a  very  correcting  effect  upon  young  Wat- 
son. However,  he  learned  to  play  the  prison 
game  of  toadyism  well  enough  to  become  a 
trusty.  This  gave  him  an  opportunity  to  ex- 
tend his  acquaintance.  He  had  a  capacity  for 
making  friends,  which  like  his  affinity  for 
women  has  influenced  his  whole  life.  One 
prison  friend  was  a  noted  forger.  "He  could 
almost  make  a  pen  talk,"  Watson  boasts.  The 
forger  went  out  first  and  he  sent  Dick  from  ten 
to  twenty  dollars  a  month  as  long  as  he  re- 
mained in  the  place.  This  not  only  helped  to 
make  life  easier  behind  the  walls,  but  taught 
Dick  that  he  had  more  to  expect  from  crooked 
friendships  than  straight  ones. 

But  by  far  the  most  important  of  these 
prison  friendships  was  that  struck  up  with 
Jimmie  Gardner,  the  bank  burglar.  Their 
terms  expired  about  the  same  time.  They 
came  to  New  York  together.  Gardner  intro- 
duced Dick  to  "Old  Jimmy  Dobbs,"  to 
"Shang"  Draper,  "Red"  Leary  and  other  men 
of  his  profession. 

One  day  as  this  group  was  drinking  together 
34 


THE  UNMAKING  OF  A  BURGLAR 

in  the  back  room  of  a  saloon,  Gardner  said  to 
Watson : 

"Kid,  are  you  going  to  be  a  straight  fellow 
or  are  you  going  to  be  a  crook?" 

"Well,"  explains  Watson,  "I  thought  of  my 
relatives  sending  me  to  that  reformatory  and 
what  it  did  to  me,  and  of  the  gray-headed  judge 
sending  me  to  the  House  of  Correction  and 
what  was  done  to  me  there,  and  I  couldn't  see 
where  I  owed  society  much  of  anything." 

"If  you  want  to  be  a  crook,"  continued  Gard- 
ner, "you  want  to  be  a  good  one.  There  is 
only  one  way  to  be  a  good  one  and  that  is  to  go 
where  the  money  is  and  that  is  in  the  safe." 

Dick  drained  his  glass  slowly  and  thought- 
fully. By  the  time  he  saw  the  bottom,  he  had 
decided  to  be  a  crook. 

Immediately  after  this  these  men  planned  the 
robbery  of  a  bank  in  Tarrytown. 

At  one  o'clock  on  a  dark  night  they  executed 
their  project;  the  bank  was  entered,  the  watch- 
man gagged  and  tied  up,  and  the  vault  blown 
open.  Watson  himself  was  allowed  to  gather 
up  the  currency  and  pack  it  in  the  satchel 

35 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

brought  for  the  purpose.  His  comment  on  the 
experience  of  this  his  first  trick  affords  an  in- 
teresting glimpse  into  the  operations  of  the 
criminal  mind. 

"It  was  the  queerest  experience  in  my  life," 
he  says.  "There  we  were  in  that  big  vault,  my 
friend  drilling  away,  and  the  two  pals  on  the 
watch  outside.  When  the  explosion  came  I 
didn't  know  where  I  was  nor  what  I  was,  but 
when  the  door  fell  off  and  I  saw  those  big 
bundles  of  yellowbacks,  I  said  to  myself: 
'You  certainly  have  got  where  the  goods  are 
and  this  pays  for  a  little  trouble.' ' 

This  first  big  success  confirmed  Watson  in 
the  life  of  a  felon  with  which  he  had  been  flirt- 
ing for  several  years. 

Those  were  the  days  when  Manhattan  Island 
was  the  Paradise  of  the  bank  burglar.  The 
cracksmen  prosecuted  their  enterprises  under 
police  protection.  If  it  was  a  New  York  bank, 
all  that  was  required  of  the  burglar  was  to 
make  a  safe  escape  from  the  immediate  vicinity 
and  prompt  division  of  the  swag  with  the 
higher-ups  in  the  police  department.  If  it  was 

36 


THE  UNMAKING  OF  A  BURGLAR 

an  out-of-town  bank  they  were  safe  the  minute 
they  got  within  the  police  lines  of  New  York 
City,  but  it  was  well  to  hurry  the  "divvy." 

However,  Watson  the  "peter-man" — a 
"peter"  is  a  safe — proved  a  nervey  individual 
and  often  operated  without  protection  and  far 
from  New  York  City  and  at  times  under  the 
very  eyes  of  the  outside  police.  On  one  of 
these  ventures  he  and  four  other  desperate  men 
took  $12,000  from  a  small  bank  in  Pittsburg. 
One  of  the  gang  was  Sidney  Gripp  who  died 
recently  in  a  Southern  prison.  Another  was 
"Big"  Ned  Kelly,  a  college  graduate,  who  is 
now  doing  life  in  Auburn  Prison  or  Danne- 
mora.  The  raid  was  such  a  daring  one  that  an 
immediate  getaway  was  impossible.  So  the 
five  men  took  the  swag  to  the  two  furnished 
rooms  in  which  they  had  been  living.  Of 
course  the  front  pages  of  the  morning  papers 
fairly  screeched  the  story.  Headquarters  men 
swarmed  over  the  city  and  guarded  every  rail- 
road station.  "Flatties,"  one  of  the  con- 
temptuous names  of  criminals  for  policemen  in 
uniform,  were  watching  every  street  car  and 

37 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

every  strange  face  upon  their  beats.  The  five 
men  in  the  two  rooms  which  they  rented  from 
the  unsuspecting  deacon  of  a  Congregational 
Church,  were  held  by  their  fears  in  a  state  of 
siege.  They  used  to  match  dollars  to  see  who 
would  go  for  a  basket  of  sandwiches.  When 
one  had  ventured  out  the  others  were  in  con- 
stant trepidation  lest  he  should  not  return,  and 
after  his  return,  trembled  at  every  footfall 
upon  the  stairs  for  fear  the  police  were  trail- 
ing him  in.  After  four  days  they  decided  upon 
a  break,  each  to  travel  by  a  separate  route  to 
a  rendezvous  agreed  upon,  which  was  in  New 
York  City. 

Watson  selected  for  his  point  of  departure  a 
little  railway  station  on  the  outskirts  of  the 
city.  He  sauntered  down  to  it  with  his  share 
of  the  $12,000  in  a  small  grip.  The  first  man 
he  saw  at  the  railroad  station,  and  the  last  he 
wanted  to  meet  except  a  headquarters  man, 
was  a  policeman.  Imagining,  of  course,  that 
the  officer  was  looking  him  over  very  sus- 
piciously, Watson  tried  to  appear  unconscious 
as  he  approached  the  ticket  window  to  inquire 

38 


for  the  train.  To  his  dismay  he  learned  that  it 
was  ten  minutes  late.  Still  feeling  the  police- 
man's eye  boring  into  his  back,  he  decided  that 
the  safest  plan  was  to  get  chummy  with  him, 
so  turning  about,  he  dropped  his  precious 
satchel  carelessly  on  the  ground  not  six  inches 
from  the  ''Flatty's"  foot  and  fell  into  conver- 
sation, explaining  that  he  was  a  theological  stu- 
dent hurrying  to  the  bedside  of  his  dying 
mother.  The  policeman  was  properly  sympa- 
thetic. Presently  the  conversation  turned 
upon  general  topics,  and  the  bank  robbery  be- 
ing the  paramount  general  topic,  they  were 
soon  discussing  it. 

"Those  must  be  very  desperate  men,"  ob- 
served the  theological  student  awesomely. 

"They  are,"  admitted  the  policeman  gravely. 
"But,"  he  affirmed  with  a  confidential  air,  "we 
are  getting  very  near  'em.  We  are  close  to  the 
swag  right  now." 

"Damned  close  to  some  of  it,"  sweated  the 
theological  student  in  the  soul  of  him,  while  he 
did  his  best  to  appear  undisturbed. 

Would  that  train  never  come  ? 
39 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

When  a  few  minutes  later  it  did  come,  the 
policeman  stooped  and  picked  up  the  grip. 
Watson's  heart  nearly  leaped  out  of  his  mouth, 
hut  he  controlled  himself.  In  a  fatherly  sort 
of  way  the  officer  escorted  the  theological  stu- 
dent to  the  car  steps,  handed  him  his  bag  again 
and  bade  the  young  man  a  sympathetic  fare- 
well. Watson,  standing  upon  the  steps,  lifted 
his  hat  graciously  to  the  policeman  and  to  every 
passing  telegraph  pole  until  he  was  safely  out 
of  sight. 

This  incident  is  not  related  to  reflect  upon 
the  blindness  of  the  policeman  but  to  illustrate 
the  ingratiating  manner  of  Watson. 

But  the  day  of  the  bank  burglar  was  going. 
New  methods  of  vault  building  and  of  bank 
protection,  plus  the  growing  network  of  tele- 
graph and  telephone  wires  together  with  im- 
proved police  surveillance  were  making  success- 
ful bank  burgling  impossible.  Watson  oc- 
casionally went  at  a  bank  where  conditions 
seemed  to  warrant  but  between  whiles  did  some 
high  class  second-story  work  and  encountered 
some  adventures  too  exciting  to  be  pleasant. 

40 


THE  UNMAKING  OF  A  BURGLAR 

On  one  such  occasion  at  three  o'clock  in  the 
morning  on  the  third  floor  of  a  house  in  Phila- 
delphia, where  he  had  succeeded  in  filling  his 
pockets  with  diamonds,  he  was  suddenly  con- 
fronted by  a  determined  man  who  levelled  a 
revolver  almost  in  his  face.  Watson  escaped 
by  taking  a  most  desperate  chance.  He  threw 
himself  backward  out  of  a  window;  and  be- 
tween a  friendly  awning  on  the  window  below, 
and  a  drain-pipe  and  the  darkness,  got  safely 
off,  but  with  bullets  whistling  round  his 
head. 

After  this  incident  Watson  inclined  to  a 
simpler  and  a  safer  life,  striking  up  a  partner- 
ship with  Ned  Lyons,  the  then-time  husband 
of  the  notorious  "Soapy"  Lyons.  "Soapy" 
was  a  lady  of  Hebrew  extraction  whose  spe- 
cialty was  blackmail.  While  collaborating 
with  her  in  this,  Watson  and  Lyons  operated 
various  "green  goods"  and  "gold  brick"  games. 
Still  farther  on  in  his  career  Watson's  "side 
kick"  in  crime  was  a  "cold  finger  woman." 
Mr.  Watson  explains,  to  me  that  a  "cold  finger 
woman"  is  one  who  flirts  most  audaciously  with 

41 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

susceptible  and  excitable  gentlemen  and  in  the 
moment  when  they  are  lavishing  endearments 
and  caresses  dexterously  abstracts  their  money 
or  jewelry  and  quickly  thereafter  finds  an  ex- 
cuse for  going  her  way. 

But  occasionally  this  glib  crook  stubbed  his 
toe.  He  stubbed  it  once,  and  got  three  years 
in  Auburn  Prison.  He  stubbed  it  again  and 
sojourned  two  years  in  the  "pen"  on  Black- 
well's  Island  for  his  miscalculation.  Perhaps 
at  such  times  vague  notions  of  reform  took 
shape  in  his  mind.  As  long  before  as  the 
Pittsburg  bank  robbery  he  and  "Big"  Ned 
Kelly  had  a  talk  in  New  York  and  concluded 
to  lay  up  some  money,  quit  the  crooked  game 
and  go  into  business.  But  they  were  never 
able  to  carry  out  their  intention.  Both  got 
out  of  money,  both  went  from  one  trick  to  an- 
other and  both  went  to  prison. 

Indeed,  when  Watson  went  up  for  the  last 
time,  nearing  forty  years  of  age,  with  twenty 
years  of  outlawry  at  his  back,  he  was  by  every 
mark,  a  man  confirmed  in  crime,  and  he  would 
have  admitted  as  much  himself.  But  in  the 

42 


THE  UNMAKING  OF  A  BURGLAR 

prison  something  happened  which  gave  an  en- 
tirely new  twist  to  his  life.  Still  this  some- 
thing seems  entirely  inadequate  to  produce  the 
results  claimed  for  it,  unless  we  can  conceive 
that  the  criminal,  no  matter  how  hardened,  is 
really  often  a  man  chuck  full  of  a  certain  kind 
of  sentiment.  What  tapped  this  low-lying 
body  of  sentiment  in  Watson's  make-up  was 
the  entrance  of  a  young  convict  who  reminded 
Watson  of  what  he  himself  was  like  when  he 
first  passed  behind  prison  walls.  This  prisoner 
was  twenty-six  years  old,  much  older  than 
Watson  on  his  first  entry,  but  he  was  very  boy- 
ish in  appearance,  and  Dick  always  thought  of 
him  as  his  younger  self  and  developed  a  strong 
affection  for  him.  Seeing  that  the  prison  it- 
self was  fast  making  a  felon  of  the  new  comer, 
notwithstanding  that  his  first  offense  had  been 
rather  a  product  of  circumstances  than  of 
criminal  intent,  and  knowing  well  what  lay 
ahead,  even  though  he  developed  into  a  smart 
crook,  Watson  felt  the  pity  of  it.  His  own 
life  seemed  doubly  repulsive  when  he  saw  it 
as  the  possible  career  of  this  fine  young  fel- 

43 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

low.  In  consequence  Dick  seized  every  oppor- 
tunity to  influence  the  young  man  against  the 
criminal  life.  In  time  the  two  became  very 
chummy.  Watson  called  the  young  fellow 
his  Little  Pal  and  felt  a  greater  attachment  for 
him  than  he  ever  had  for  any  human  being  be- 
fore. He  regularly  employed  all  his  trained 
cunning  and  his  painfully  acquired  knowledge 
of  prison  wire-pulling  to  secure  easier  condi- 
tions for  the  young  man  whose  health  was 
none  too  good.  On  the  other  hand  the  Little 
Pal  reciprocated  Dick's  affection,  was  deeply 
grateful  for  his  many  kindnesses,  and  gave  evi- 
dence of  responding  to  his  good  influence.  It 
was  upon  this  foundation  that  Watson's  life 
later  turned  as  a  sort  of  fulcrum. 

But  changes  in  prison  organization,  disci- 
pline, or  routine  frequently  disrupt  associa- 
tions such  as  that  between  Dick  Watson  and 
his  Little  Pal,  and  the  men  although  within 
the  same  walls  may  be  long  in  getting  in  touch 
with  each  other  again.  Such  a  change  sepa- 
rated these  two  for  many  months,  for  so  long, 
in  fact,  that  when  Watson  located  his  Little 

44 


THE  UNMAKING  OF  A  BURGLAR 

Pal  again  he  was  in  the  tubercular  ward  of  the 
prison  hospital.  Watson,  grief-stricken,  suc- 
ceeded in  getting  himself  made  a  trusty  and 
appointed  to  nurse  duty  in  the  tubercular  ward. 
Unquestionably  the  shadows  were  drawing 
near  for  the  young  man  and  Watson  often  sat 
for  long  intervals  bowed  over  his  bed  as  if 
watching  the  hourly  wasting  of  his  life. 
There  was  little  or  no  conversation,  yet  in  these 
silences  the  men  got  closer  and  closer  to  each 
other's  hearts.  One  evening  when  the  Little 
Pal  was  very  low,  Watson  asked: 

"Is  there  anybody  you  want  to  send  a 
message  to,  Kid,  before  you  go?" 

With  a  grim  shake  of  his  head  the  young 
man  answered: 

"Nobody,"  while  a  mask  of  utter  loneliness 
framed  itself  upon  his  features. 

But  two  hours  later  when  Watson  returned, 
the  young  man  placed  a  sealed  letter  solici- 
tously in  his  hands. 

"Say,  Pal,"  he  said,  speaking  with  difficulty, 
"there  is  one  friend,  a  woman — she  ain't  a 
straight  woman  either,  Watson!  but  I  want 

45 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

you  to  take  this  to  her — when  you  get  out,  I 
mean, — will  you?" 

"I  sure  will,  Pal,"  replied  Watson,  in  the 
kindest  tone  he  had  ever  mustered  in  his  life. 

The  boyish  man  looked  his  gratitude  out  of 
sunken  blue  eyes,  and  for  a  time  was  continu- 
ally moistening  his  lips  as  if  about  to  speak, 
but  finally  he  appeared  to  give  up  the  idea. 

"He  will  go  to-night,"  the  doctor  murmured 
to  Watson  as  he  made  his  last  round. 

Hour  after  hour  Watson,  busy  with  his 
thoughts,  stayed  close,  hovering  low  and  in  si- 
lence over  that  marked  bed  in  the  ghostly  light 
of  the  old  prison  loft  with  scores  of  other  beds 
around.  Once  Dick  dozed  off  for  a  minute. 
He  was  awakened  by  a  cold  hand  groping  for 
his. 

"Good-by,"  whispered  a  hoarse  voice, 
"good-by!" 

There  was  a  cough,  a  gasp,  and  then  a  long, 
deep  sigh  which  hissed  wearily  up  from  the 
pillow,  growing  fainter  and  fainter.  The  old 
prison  blanket  on  the  cot  stirred  lazily  for  a 
moment  and  then  its  sagging  folds  grew  still. 

46 


THE  UNMAKING  OF  A  BURGLAR 

Watson  stared  about  him  in  a  startled  way 
with  a  sense  that  something  had  just  brushed 
past  him  and  out  over  the  rows  of  prison  beds. 
He  bent  over  and  looked  curiously  at  the  mo- 
tionless face  on  the  pillow.  A  great  change 
had  taken  place.  The  wasted  features  had  an 
empty,  untenanted  look.  His  Little  Pal  had 
gone! 

•  •••*•• 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  Watson's  af- 
fection for  the  Little  Pal,  and  his  solicitude  for 
his  reform,  reacted  upon  his  own  nature,  at 
least  to  the  extent  of  changing  it  with  a  senti- 
mental desire  to  "turn  straight."  The  shock 
occasioned  by  his  death  stimulated  this  desire, 
and  while  in  this  moral  state  for  seven  months, 
sleeping  and  waking,  Dick  carried  in  his  clothes 
the  Little  Pal's  last  message.  Every  time 
Watson  turned  this  envelope  in  his  hands  he 
says  he  thought  about  turning  straight,  but 
couldn't  summon  resolution  enough  to  agree 
with  himself  to  do  so. 

There  was  but  one  name  upon  the  envelope 
— Helen,  with  a  number  and  street  in  a  large 

47 


Eastern  city.  The  day  he  came  out  Watson 
went  as  straight  as  steam  and  trolleys  could 
take  him  to  the  number  given.  He  recognized 
the  character  of  the  house  the  moment  he  was 
inside  the  door.  It  was  a  brother  of  the 
higher  class,  known  professionally  as  a  "wine- 
house." 

"Yes,"  said  the  woman  who  admitted  him, 
"Helen  is  here,  I  will  call  her." 

In  response  to  the  call  a  very  beautiful 
woman,  in  a  semi-diaphanous  morning  robe, 
came  down  the  stairs. 

"Now,  I  have  seen  some  good  looking  women 
in  my  time,"  says  Watson  emphatically,  "but 
I  want  to  tell  you  she  was  some  corker!" 

"But  I  have  no  friend  who  could  be  sending 
me  a  message,"  the  woman  protested  blankly 
and  rather  sadly,  Watson  thought. 

"Think!"  exclaimed  Watson,  producing  the 
letter. 

"Except  one,"  she  admitted,  "and  he  is — he 
is  away." 

"Yes,"  said  Watson,  "he  is  away,  farther 
away  than  you  think." 

48 


THE  UNMAKING  OF  A  BURGLAR 

The  woman's  face  paled  at  the  tone.  She 
snatched  the  letter  eagerly  from  Watson's  hand 
and  as  she  read  it  burst  into  tears. 

A  heaving  bosom  in  that  gaudy  gown,  the 
sound  of  sobbing  in  that  garish  room,  where 
the  very  decorations  were  brazen  and  unfeel- 
ing, both  seemed  strangely  out  of  place.  Nor 
was  Watson  easily  moved  by  woman's  tears  of 
which  he  had  seen  a  plenty;  yet  he  could  not 
but  own  a  very  genuine  sympathy  with  any- 
one who  had  loved  his  Little  Pal.  Presently, 
too,  he  found  himself  regarding  the  woman 
sympathetically  on  her  own  account.  In  the 
first  place  her  grief  was  real,  and  unaffected ; 
in  the  second,  she  was  so  beautiful,  but  so  un- 
coarsened,  so  unscarred  by  this  mode  of  life, 
so  obviously  unlike  it  that  he,  knowing  the 
women  of  that  world  intimately  for  twenty 
years,  and  what  it  makes  of  them,  felt  a  sense 
of  protest  against  her  presence  there,  which  in- 
deed was  the  very  same  emotion  he  had  felt  at 
seeing  the  Little  Pal  come  into  the  prison. 
When  on  top  of  this  feeling,  after  her  first 
outburst  of  grief,  the  woman  began  to  ques- 

49 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

tion  Watson  for  details  of  the  Little  Pal's  last 
days,  turning  upon  him  a  pair  of  great  blue 
eyes,  that  while  swimming  with  tears  searched 
his  soul  hungrily  to  the  very  bottom,  Dick 
found  his  own  eyes  misting  over,  and  experi- 
enced a  choking  sensation,  so  that  he  wondered 
at  himself. 

When  he  had  answered  all  her  questions  and 
stood  gazing  at  the  woman,  more  and  more 
deeply  impressed  by  the  disharmony  of  her 
surroundings,  he  suddenly  blurted: 

"Look  here,  girl,  this  ain't  no  life  for  you — 
why  don't  you  cut  it?" 

Watson  was  greatly  surprised  at  himself  the 
moment  the  words  were  out  of  his  mouth ;  and 
questioned  vaguely  if  he  was  getting  dippy  or 
turning  preacher  or  just  what  was  the  matter 
with  him.  But  he  was  immeasurably  more 
surprised  by  the  woman's  reply  as  she  gripped 
both  of  his  hands  in  hers  and  exclaimed  im- 
pulsively : 

"You  are  right.  It  is  no  life  for  me.  I  am 
sick  and  tired  of  it — only  yesterday  I  was  talk- 
ing with  a  minister. — I  was  going  over  to 

50 


THE  UNMAKING  OF  A  BURGLAR 

New  York  to  some  friends  to  start  right  and 
stay  right — but,"  and  with  another  break  in 
her  voice,  as  she  held  up  the  letter.  "I  was  go- 
ing to  stay  right  for  him. — And  now" —  Her 
voice  choked  up  again. 

The  upshot  of  the  matter  was  that  Watson, 
who  had  come  to  the  house  merely  as  a  matter 
of  devotion  to  a  dead  pal,  sat  down  and  spent 
a  half  hour  trying  to  persuade  this  woman 
whose  name  was  Helen  to  abandon  her  way  of 
living  and  helping  her  plan  a  new  start. 
When  he  had  succeeded,  the  woman  suddenly 
turned  upon  him  and  began  to  urge  him  to  live 
straight  for  the  sake  of  the  Little  Pal.  Wat- 
son was  quickly  on  the  defensive,  but  the 
woman  used  in  succession  every  one  of  the  ar- 
guments he  had  just  employed  against  her. 
Already  half  desiring  to  live  straight  but  lack- 
ing the  resolution  to  attempt  it,  Watson  pres- 
ently gave  the  same  promise  he  had  exacted 
from  the  woman. 

The  whole  story  seems  so  improbable  that 
one  might  be  tempted  to  discredit  it  utterly  but 
for  what  grew  out  of  it  and  cannot  be  ex- 

51 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

plained  very  well  otherwise.  In  parting,  it 
appears,  the  two  pledged  themselves  to  the 
new  life  with  a  handclasp,  calling  each  other 
by  their  first  names,  Dick  and  Helen;  but  it 
was  years  before  they  met  again,  and  then 
under  circumstances  that  claim  a  significant 
place  in  this  narrative,  for  each  kept  track  of 
the  other  in  a  general  way. 

The  woman  acted  with  rare  resolution. 
That  very  day  she  left  the  house  and  went 
straight  to  New  York  City,  where  she  secured 
a  position  as  a  housekeeper;  but  having  had 
training  as  a  milliner,  she  presently  turned  to 
that,  and  possessing  energy  and  a  small  capital, 
she  soon  owned  a  store  of  her  own.  Her  ven- 
ture was  very  successful.  Eventually  she  had 
a  place  on  Fifth  Avenue  and  sold  hats  to  the 
bon-ton  of  New  York.  She  joined  a  church 
and  took  a  keen  interest  in  religious  work.  A 
man  whom  she  met  in  a  business  way,  but  who 
had  religious  sympathies  like  herself,  offered 
his  hand.  Helen  loved  him  but  refused  him. 
He  pressed  her  for  a  reason.  With  a  very 
white  face  she  told  the  story  of  her  life.  He 

52 


THE  UNMAKING  OF  A  BURGLAR 

swayed  for  a  moment  as  if  hit  with  a  club ;  but 
the  next  day  proposed  again  and  Helen  ac- 
cepted him.  Their  wedded  life  was  happy, 
while  it  lasted,  but  the  husband  died  before 
long,  leaving  Helen  a  childless  widow  with  a 
comfortable  estate. 

But  during  the  half  dozen  years  required 
for  these  events  to  happen  in  the  life  of  Helen, 
Watson  had  not  been  succeeding  so  well.  He 
did  have  force  enough  to  abandon  a  criminal 
life  but  not  enough  to  put  anything  in  the  place 
of  it.  He  continued  to  be  the  associate  of 
felons  and  of  women  of  the  half-world.  He 
made  his  living  by  playing  the  races,  and  other 
forms  of  gambling,  and  gave  himself  up  at 
times  to  drink. 

But  about  1904  a  safe  was  cracked  in  Boston 
and  the  crime  was  laid  by  the  police  at  the  door 
of  Watson,  whose  whereabouts  in  New  York 
were  easily  discoverable.  Watson  was  not 
guilty  but  he  was  a  close  associate  of  the  men 
who  were.  The  circumstances  were  against 
him.  The  New  York  police  were  upon  his 
trail.  Late  at  night  he  drifted  up  the  East 

53 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

side  of  Manhattan  Island,  having  grapevine 
advices  that  the  police  had  him  located  and  were 
spreading  the  net.  They  might  take  him  at 
the  next  corner.  He  was  feeling  sore  and  bit- 
ter. Although  innocent  he  had  not  a  doubt 
that  the  crime  would  be  fastened  upon  him  and 
he  would  be  sent  to  jail  for  a  long  term.  He 
felt  he  had  had  his  share  of  prison  life.  He 
wanted  no  more  of  it.  He  had  a  gun  in  his 
"kick"  (pocket)  and  made  up  his  mind  that  he 
would  not  be  taken  alive.  Furtively  he  slipped 
northward  from  street  to  street  until  he  had 
reached  a  saloon  near  the  College  of  Physicians 
and  Surgeons  on  Fifty-ninth  Street.  There 
he  determined  to  retreat  no  farther.  If  they 
took  him  they  would  fight  for  it  first. 

While  waiting  here,  scrutinizing  the  face  of 
every  man  who  passed,  not  knowing  at  what 
moment  the  battle  would  begin,  something  re- 
minded him  of  Helen.  The  thought  of  her 
softened  his  mood  and  made  him  hopeful  again. 
He  had  her  address.  It  was  away  over  on 
the  West  Side.  He  had  an  idea  that  if  he 
could  work  his  way  over  there  she  would  har- 

54 


THE  UNMAKING  OF  A  BURGLAR 

bour  him  for  the  night.  By  taking  advantage 
of  the  alleys  and  the  shadows  he  reached  her 
number  without  once  seeing  a  uniform.  The 
hour  was  late  and  the  house  was  dark.  Dick 
was  afraid  to  ring,  but  he  tried  the  effect  of 
pebbles  on  the  front  window  of  the  second 
story.  His  experience  as  a  house-breaker  had 
taught  him  to  tell  the  plan  of  a  house  from  the 
outward  look  of  it  and  to  make  a  tolerably  ac- 
curate guess  as  to  how  the  rooms  lay  and  for 
what  they  would  be  occupied.  The  fifth  or 
sixth  pebble  brought  Helen  cautiously  to  the 
window.  It  rose  slowly  and  softly.  She,  too, 
had  acquired  furtive  instincts  that  would  never 
leave  her.  This  was  fortunate  for  the  reforma- 
tion of  Watson. 

"Who  is  it?"  she  called  softly. 

"It's  Dick,"  he  whispered  from  below.  "I'm 
in  trouble." 

"Wait  there,"  the  woman  called  down. 

In  a  few  minutes  the  front  door  opened  noise- 
lessly and  Dick  slipped  inside,  Helen's  low 
voice  cautioning  him  to  be  quiet  as  there  were 
other  people  in  the  house. 

55 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

Watson  was  hardly  prepared  for  the  change 
in  Helen.  The  years  had  touched  her  in  pass- 
ing, but  if  her  beauty  had  faded  somewhat 
there  had  come  a  new  expression  upon  her  face 
that  crowned  it  like  a  halo  and  Dick  found  him- 
self gazing  at  her  wonderingly  and  with  a  kind 
of  reverence.  He  knew  out  of  what  she  had 
come. 

In  his  low-whispered  thieves'  vernacular 
Dick  told  his  story.  Helen  listened  sympa- 
thetically with  frequent  nods  or  low-voiced 
murmurings  of  comprehension. 

"Dick,"  she  said,  earnestly,  when  he  had  fin- 
ished, "you  know  where  you  met  me,  and  you 
know  what  I  am  now.  I  have  found  great 
help  through  religion.  I  will  cover  you  up 
here  to-night  and  help  you  out  of  town  to- 
morrow. You  go  right  back  to  Boston.  If 
they  have  got  anything  on  you,  let  them  take 
you.  Do  your  'bit'  and  then  come  out  and 
live  square." 

She  may  have  spoken  at  greater  length,  but 
this  is  the  gist  of  the  conversation  as  Watson 
remembers  it.  Afterwards  Helen  made  him 

56 


THE  UNMAKING  OF  A  BURGLAR 

a  bed  upon  a  couch  and  left  him,  but  he  did  not 
sleep.  Something  about  Helen  seemed  to 
make  her  words  substantial.  They  remained 
in  his  consciousness  like  solid  things  which  he 
could  not  brush  away  and  which  did  not  of 
themselves  blur  and  dissolve  with  the  passing 
of  the  hours.  They  stirred  impulses  that  of 
themselves  seemed  enduring  enough  to  build 
on;  but  "Let  them  take  you,"  and  "do  your 
bit,"  were  the  stumbling  blocks  in  Helen's  ex- 
hortation. 

Watson  had  no  inclination  to  go  to  prison 
again.  His  last  term  had  nearly  done  for  him. 
Besides  there  were  unexpiated  crimes  in  his 
Boston  career.  To  go  back  into  the  teeth  of 
these,  to  burn  them  out  of  his  record  by  more 
prison  years,  and  then  start  new  and  fresh 
with  the  consciousness  of  guilt  atoned  for,  was 
what  the  proposal  of  Helen  meant. 

Did  he  have  iron  enough  left  in  his  moral 
constitution  to  do  this?  That  was  the  ques- 
tion. Under  the  influence  of  Helen's  person- 
ality and  obvious  achievement,  Watson  finally 
decided  that  he  had. 

57 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

The  next  morning  early  she  pressed  a  roll 
of  bills  in  his  hands  saying,  "Remember  what  I 
was";  and  added,  "I  shall  be  praying  for  you." 

From  this  on  I  dot  down  the  outstanding 
incidents  in  Watson's  career,  without  attempt- 
ing to  show  that  they  represent  probabilities 
or  even  plausibilities.  They  have  been  forced 
upon  me  as  facts  susceptible  of  proof. 
Whether  they  were  necessary  to  his  reforma- 
tion, or  whether  they  are  logical  or  psychologi- 
cal is  of  less  importance  than  that  they  are  the 
flesh  and  the  blood  of  the  experiences  of  Rich- 
ard Watson,  convict.  We  have  seen  him  go 
down  under  the  influence  of  numerous  women 
as  bad  or  worse  than  himself.  Now  he  begins 
definitely  to  go  up  under  the  influence  of  this 
one  good  woman  who  had  herself  been  bad, 
and  we  shall  see  him  fighting  desperately  to 
escape  the  wiles  of  the  worse  women  again  until 
at  last  he  attains  a  height  where  what  may  be 
termed  sunlight  forces  finally  get  their  grip 
on  the  man  and  swing  him  into  his  present 
orbit  of  rectitude  and  modest  distinction. 

Amply  supplied  with  money  by  Helen,  Wat- 
58 


THE  UNMAKING  OF  A  BURGLAR 

son  made  an  easy  escape  from  Manhattan 
Island  and  a  day  later  greatly  astonished  Chief 
Inspector  Hanscom  of  Boston  by  turning  up 
at  headquarters  and  asking: 

"Chief,  do  you  want  me?" 

"Why,  I  guess  so,"  replied  the  surprised 
Chief,  "we  generally  want  you." 

However,  as  they  walked  him  down  the  cor- 
ridors and  locked  him  in  a  headquarters'  cell, 
Watson's  resolution  weakened  pitiably  and  a 
North  Pole  chill  froze  his  veins.  He  felt  as 
if  the  key  were  thrust  and  the  bolts  were  shot 
in  his  own  heart  instead  of  in  the  big  lock  on 
the  door.  But  the  Chief  could  get  nothing 
on  him.  The  only  successfully  accusing  wit- 
ness against  Watson  was  himself,  and  the  Chief 
would  not  be  so  unfair  as  to  call  upon  him  to 
testify. 

Watson  went  free  with  high  hopes  of  secur- 
ing employment  at  honest  work.  He  applied 
to  the  employment  department  of  one  widely 
known  institution  where  they  gave  him  a  blank 
to  fill  out,  showing  where  he  was  employed  last, 
etc.  "All  about  where  I  was  last  year  and 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

the  year  before  that  and  so  on  to  the  day  I 
was  born,"  explains  Watson  to-day  with  a 
grimace.  He  knew  if  he  filled  out  that  blank 
nobody  would  employ  him,  and  he  was  abso- 
lutely unwilling  to  begin  his  new  life  of  in- 
tegrity by  the  writing  of  a  lie,  so  he  laid  down 
the  blank  and  the  pen  and  went  out.  Then 
followed  a  search  for  employment  that  was 
long  and  discouraging. 

At  length  Watson  made  friends  with  a  big 
business  man,  for  it  will  be  remembered,  he  was 
always  good  at  making  friends.  The  business 
man  gave  him  a  letter  to  the  superintendent 
of  a  large  building,  told  him  to  tell  his  story 
in  full,  and  the  superintendent  would  undoubt- 
edly put  him  to  work.  As  Watson  entered  the 
superintendent's  office  he  observed  that  the  safe 
door  was  open.  This  was  Watson's  old  in- 
stinct reasserting  itself.  No  matter  how 
crammed  with  furniture  a  room  might  be,  he 
would  see  the  "peter"  before  he  saw  anything 
else  and  in  one  glance  would  know  what  kind 
of  a  safe  it  was  and  all  about  it.  But  the  safe 
might  have  been  full  of  money  and  the  inner 

60 


THE  UNMAKING  OF  A  BURGLAR 

doors  ajar  as  well,  and  it  would  have  made  no 
difference  to  Watson.  He  was  now  an  honest 
man. 

The  superintendent  read  the  letter  thought- 
fully, with  lifted  brows,  then  asked  Watson 
if  he  had  ever  been  in  prison.  Realizing  that 
the  letter  must  have  contained  some  hint  of 
his  criminal  record,  Watson  against  his  own 
judgment  answered  frankly  that  he  had.  The 
superintendent  got  up  nervously,  went  and 
closed  the  door  of  his  safe,  came  back  and  sat 
down,  glanced  at  the  letter  again  without 
touching  it,  as  if  it  were  a  thing  infected,  stared 
Watson  over  like  some  wild  animal  and  said 
in  staccato  tones  of  insincerity: 

"Why,  er — yes, — er — you  might  come  back 
to-morrow.  I  will  see  what  we  can  do." 

Watson  knew  better  than  to  come  back. 
Repeated  attempts  were  convincing  him  that 
society  gives  the  ex-convict  small  chance  to 
reform  himself  when  he  tries,  and  that  the  mod- 
ern police  system,  instead  of  helping  the  felon 
to  replace  himself  in  the  world,  is  more  likely 
to  dog  him  back  into  crime. 

61 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

But  Watson  was  unusually  persistent.  He 
was  not  a  broken-down  felon  who  had  quit  the 
game  because  he  had  lost  his  nerve.  He  had 
plenty  of  self-confidence  and  could  make  a  good 
"approach."  Still  he  was  unable  to  get  a  foot- 
ing. His  money  was  slipping  away.  One  day 
with  his  last  dollar  gone,  or  to  be  exact,  with  less 
than  twenty-five  cents  in  his  pocket,  he  drifted 
across  the  Common.  But  one  resource  re- 
mained— the  memory  of  Helen — what  she,  a 
woman,  could  do,  he,  a  man,  could  do.  Be- 
cause of  this  memory  he  would  not  give 
up.  Sauntering  out  on  Tremont  Street  and 
staring  into  the  window  of  a  book  store,  he  saw 
it  heaped  high  with  copies  of  Jacob  Riis's  book, 
"Roosevelt  the  Citizen."  Watson  went  inside 
and  struck  up  a  bargain  to  peddle  the  books. 
His  canvassing  met  with  indifferent  success; 
however,  it  kept  him  busy  and  it  kept  him  in 
food. 

But — women  again!  Watson  had  great 
difficulty  in  keeping  out  of  the  nets  of  women 
with  whom  he  had  been  entangled  in  his  care- 
less criminal  days.  The  town  seemed  to  be  full 

62 


THE  UNMAKING  OF  A  BURGLAR 

of  them.  He  changed  his  address  frequently, 
kept  away  from  the  dangerous  parts  of  town 
and  set  his  face  stolidly  in  the  way  of  straight 
living. 

One  Sunday  afternoon  a  group  of  his  old 
pals  found  him  out.  There  were  two  men  and 
four  women  in  the  party.  They  poured  in 
on  him  with  yells  of  delight,  chaffing  him  un- 
mercifully. But,  too,  they  crowded  the  loneli- 
ness out  of  his  little  room  and  filled  it  with 
that  old-time  spirit  of  comradeship  and  riotous 
conviviality  that  was  once  the  breath  of  his 
nostrils.  For  a  time  their  enthusiasm  was  ir- 
resistible, and  bore  him  along.  The  popping 
of  corks  kept  time  to  the  cracking  of  jokes 
and  the  singing  of  snatches  of  song;  yet  when 
the  carousal  was  at  its  height,  Watson,  slipped 
out  on  a  pretext,  and  did  not  return.  For  a 
time  he  stood  shivering  in  the  door-way  below. 
A  feeling  of  terror  had  come  over  him.  He 
knew  he  was  taking  too  much  liquor.  Under 
its  influence  he  might  commit  some  crime,  or 
involve  himself  in  some  compact  or  enterprise 
that  would  hurl  him  helplessly  back  into  the 

63 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

abyss  out  of  which  he  was  climbing.  The  more 
he  thought  about  it  the  more  alarmed  he  be- 
came. Quitting  the  door-way,  he  hurried  aim- 
lessly along  the  street,  with  an  occasional  back- 
ward glance,  until  the  lights  of  the  Dudley 
Street  Baptist  Church  streamed  into  his 
face. 

Like  a  murderer  seeking  sanctuary,  he 
dashed  inside  and  hid  in  the  farthest  corner  of  a 
pew,  sitting  lone  and  strange  till  the  service 
was  over  and  the  building  nearly  empty,  when 
the  minister,  a  big,  athletic  man,  got  him  by 
the  hand  and  shook  him  almost  into  a  new 
world  by  the  vigor  of  his  greeting. 

"How  is  it  with  you,  brother?"  he  asked 
heartily. 

Dick  explained  rather  helplessly  that  "it" 
was  not  so  very  well  with  him.  Something  in 
the  preacher's  manner,  however,  warmed  Wat- 
son's chilling  hopes  amazingly. 

"Come  and  see  me  again.  I  am  your  friend. 
Leave  rum  out  of  your  life,"  were  the  minis- 
ter's last  words. 

That  minister,  by  the  way,  was  the  Reverend 
64 


THE  UNMAKING  OF  A  BURGLAR 

William  W.  Bustard,  now  John  D.  Rocke- 
feller's pastor  in  Cleveland,  a  man  whom  his 
intimates,  including  the  ex-burglar  and  the  oil 
magnate,  love  to  call  "Billie"  Bustard. 

There  must  have  been  magic  in  the  words 
which  Billie  Bustard  spoke  to  Richard  Watson 
that  night — at  least  that  magic  which  lies  in 
the  appeal  of  muscular  manliness  for  from  that 
hour  Watson  has  been  able  to  resist  the  appeal 
of  liquor.  But  other  temptations  came  tiptoe- 
ing after  him. 

On  one  of  his  very  dullest  book-vending 
days,  Dick  encountered  a  notorious  crook  who 
was  a  former  pal.  The  pal  was  overjoyed  to 
see  him,  and  very  voluble. 

"Come  in  have  a  drink,  Kid,"  he  exclaimed, 
seizing  him  by  the  elbow,  and  dragging  him 
through  a  door-way.  "They  tell  me  you're 
livin'  straight  now.  Cut  it,  Kid !  There  ain't 
anything  in  it.  I  can  show  you  how  to  get 
the  green  in  chunks.  If  it's  a  stake  you  need 
now,  Kid,"  and  the  fellow  pulled  a  roll  of  bills 
the  size  of  a  horse's  leg  from  his  pocket  and 
prepared  to  peel  some  layers  from  the  outside : 

65 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

"If  it's  a  stake  you  need,  why  here,  let  me  slip 
you  a  couple  of  century  spots." 

For  a  week  nobody  had  wanted  books.  Dick 
could  not  pay  for  his  dinner  until  he  had  sold 
a  book.  The  sight  of  that  roll  of  yellow-backs 
set  him  wild.  He  dared  not  look  at  it,  but  shot 
out  of  the  door  and  ran  as  if  the  police  were 
after  him,  flying  circuitously  to  the  seclusion  of 
his  room. 

There  he  picked  up  a  Bible.  Watson  had 
never  any  use  for  the  Bible.  There  had  been 
one  in  the  ditty-box  in  his  cell  with  the  salt, 
soap  and  tobacco  in  every  prison  he  had  ever 
occupied.  Never  once  that  he  could  remem- 
ber had  he  gone  so  far  as  to  open  the  Bible  and 
read  it.  But  now  he  did,  gazing  at  its  printed 
line  as  at  some  sort  of  fetish,  or  leafing  through 
the  pages  as  if  turning  some  kind  of  prayer 
wheel. 

"God  help  me !"  he  exclaimed,  at  length.  "I 
don't  know  how  to  pray,  but  God  help  me! 
That's  what  I  want  you  to  do,  help  me!" 

After  this  he  rushed  out  and  in  an  hour  had 
sold  four  dollars'  worth  of  Bibles,  and  felt 

66 


THE  UNMAKING  OF  A  BURGLAR 

that  some  power  was  helping  him.  The  next 
day  was  Sunday.  Watson  was  hungry  for  hu- 
man companionship.  If  he  could  just  get  one 
more  handshake  from  that  preacher  with  the 
Muldoon  grip,  he  thought  it  would  about  put 
him  over  the  line.  But  at  the  church  there  was 
a  surprise  in  store.  It  was  morning  instead 
of  night,  and  after  the  preaching  service,  in- 
stead of  letting  Dick  go  with  a  mere  handshake, 
Doctor  Bustard  literally  strong-armed  him 
into  the  famous  Page  Bible  Class.  There 
were  nearly  two  hundred  men  there,  organized 
like  a  club,  but  with  Mr.  C.  L.  Page  teaching  a 
Bible  lesson.  Watson,  poor  and  a  stranger, 
was  warmly  welcomed.  They  made  him  feel 
as  much  at  home  as  if  he  were  in  prison.  It 
was  the  first  time  outside  of  prison  he  had  ever 
been  an  integral  part  even  for  an  hour  of  so 
large  a  social  group  of  men.  The  experience 
moved  Watson  greatly.  It  moved  him  so 
much  that  presently  he  got  up  and  made  a 
speech.  Being  the  first  speech  he  had  ever 
made  in  his  life  it  was  a  rather  unorganized, 
chaotic  sort  of  utterance.  He  merely  opened 

67 


the  trap-doors  of  his  soul,  and  a  burst  of  his  ex- 
periences, first  as  an  undesirable  citizen  and  then 
in  his  endeavor  to  reform,  exuded.  At  times 
his  language  impressed  his  hearers  as  a  trifle 
strong,  even  rancid;  but  Watson  had  been 
rubbed  down  to  the  raw.  He  was  like  a  man 
in  the  heat  of  battle  whose  very  prayers  sound 
like  oaths  and  whose  oaths  are  meant  to  be 
prayers. 

This  speech  seems  just  about  to  have  com- 
pleted the  reformation  of  Watson.  In  it  he 
had  discovered  that  he  had  a  message.  Hence- 
forth his  own  life  must  live  up  to  that  message. 
Preaching  to  society  that  criminals  could  be  re- 
formed, he  had  to  demonstrate  that  he  himself 
had  been  reformed.  He  went  into  the  class  a 
rather  trembly,  uncertain,  conscience-branded 
individual.  He  came  out  strong.  His  prison 
brand  had  become  the  badge  of  his  new  calling. 
He  had  discovered  his  power.  He,  Watson, 
the  crook,  the  pariah,  had  stood  up  before  two 
hundred  free  men  who  had  never  worn  a  stripe, 
nor  felt  the  nip  of  steel,  and  he  had  told  them 
what  was  what.  He  saw  that  his  ideas  had 

68 


THE  UNMAKING  OF  A  BURGLAR 

power  over  these  men.  He  saw  their  eyes 
fixed,  their  mouths  agape,  their  cheeks  go  pale 
— a  sort  of  awe  upon  their  faces.  He,  Watson, 
had  done  it.  From  this  hour  he  was  no  shifty 
struggler  in  the  half-light  between  crookedness 
and  honesty.  He  was  straight.  He  had  be- 
come an  ambassador  in  stripes  to  the  man  who 
never  wore  a  stripe,  on  behalf  of  the  men  who 
had. 

And  Watson  was  quite  right  in  his  estimate 
of  this  first  address.  He  found  himself  invited 
to  speak  before  other  classes,  before  clubs,  and 
associations  of  various  kinds.  Feeling  very 
sure  of  himself,  exceedingly  proud  of  his  own 
achievement  in  climbing  out  of  the  pit,  he  did 
not  hesitate  to  blurt  out  his  very  emphatic  and 
often  very  crude  opinions  upon  the  most  ab- 
struse and  complex  of  social  questions.  A 
body  of  college  professors  or  a  group  of  scien- 
tists found  themselves  as  helplessly  under  the 
spell  while  listening  to  one  of  Watson's  society- 
scolding  lectures  as  if  they  had  been  an  insti- 
tute of  kindergarten  teachers.  In  fact  the 
scientists  listened  to  Watson  a  little  more  re- 

69 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

spectfully  than  anybody  else  because  the  very 
evident  scars  upon  the  man's  soul  attested  his 
right  to  be  heard.  He  was  himself  a  specimen 
to  be  studied,  a  case  to  be  observed. 

And  always  the  theme  of  Watson's  speeches 
was  the  reform  of  criminals.  He  had  just 
fought  his  way  up  from  the  bottom.  His  heart 
was  full  of  sympathy  for  his  old  pals.  He  had 
not  much  respect  for  the  bums  and  hobos ;  but 
for  the  expert  criminal,  the  man  of  nerve  and 
intellect,  he  had  more  than  respect,  admiration! 
Every  time  he  spoke  he  railed  against  the 
"thumbs  down"  attitude  of  society,  toward  the 
criminal  who  seeks  to  reform. 

Between  speeches,  and  between  the  book 
chaffering  by  which  he  lived,  Watson  began  a 
systematic  "look-up"  for  criminals  as  they 
came  from  the  State's  Prisons  and  the  Houses 
of  Correction.  He  tried  to  meet  them  first, 
before  the  old  criminal  influences  got  hold  of 
them.  He  lost  no  opportunity,  as  he  went 
about,  to  extend  his  acquaintance  among  men 
of  the  employing  class.  Once  he  got  the  en- 
tree to  some  of  these  big  business  men  in  their 

70 


THE  UNMAKING  OF  A  BURGLAR 

offices  he  was  continually  coming  to  them  with 
a  short-haired,  furtive-eyed  man  or  two  at  his 
heels,  and  pleading  that  they  be  given  employ- 
ment and  a  chance  to  build  themselves  back 
into  society.  There  was  no  denying  Watson 
when  he  came  on  a  mission  like  this.  He  could 
jimmy  his  way  to  an  employer's  heart  as  easily 
as  in  the  old  days  he  had  cracked  a  "peter"  or 
got  his  hand  upon  a  "leather."  Once  he  got  a 
taste  of  the  satisfaction  that  comes  from  put- 
ting another  man  upon  his  feet,  Watson  was 
absolutely  unsuppressible. 

"Why  don't  you  start  something  definite  to 
help  these  men?"  asked  Spencer  Baldwin,  Pro- 
fessor of  Economics  in  Boston  University. 

Watson  was  not  long  in  dreaming  a  plan 
out  of  Professor  Baldwin's  idea.  Doctor 
John  Dixwell  gave  the  enthusiast  a  check  for 
the  first  month's  rent  of  the  room  that  was  to 
be  the  social  center  and  headquarters,  and  the 
dream  was  a  fact. 

But  rather  fittingly  it  was  the  woman  called 
Helen  who  gave  this  organization  its  first  real 
lease  of  life  and  opportunity  to  demonstrate 

71 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

itself.  Watson  wrote  her  a  letter  of  babbling 
joy  telling  of  his  own  progress  and  of  his  new 
project;  and  she,  remembering  the  debt  she 
owed  to  Dick  for  having  quickened  her  own 
waking  impulses  to  a  better  life,  sent  him  a 
check  for  three  hundred  dollars. 

Watson  was  soon  devoting  all  his  time  to 
this  new  work.  To-day  he  is  a  pillar  of 
hope  to  the  men  who  come  from  behind  the 
grey  walls.  His  method  is  distinctly  prac- 
tical. When  a  man  comes  out  Watson  is  there 
to  meet  him.  As  a  matter  of  fact  Watson 
thinks  the  work  ought  to  begin  inside.  For  a 
time  he  used  to  go  inside  and  talk  to  the  men 
in  groups  of  twenty-five  or  thirty,  who  were 
soon  to  be  liberated.  But  one  day  a  "screw" 
recognized  Watson.  "You  have  done  time," 
he  said. 

"I  don't  deny  it,"  admitted  Watson. 

After  this  the  prison  authorities  dug  up 
some  old  regulation  which  forbids  entree  to  the 
prison  to  former  inmates. 

So  Watson  meets  them  at  the  gate.  He  has 
been  doing  this  for  eight  years.  His  card 

72 


THE  UNMAKING  OF  A  BURGLAR 

reads :  "Prison  Gate  Work,  Richard  Watson, 
Supt.,  Room  43,  34  Merchants  Row,  Boston, 
Mass."  Upon  that  card  are  printed  as  di- 
rectors the  names  of  a  dozen  of  the  leading 
business  and  professional  men  of  Boston. 

As  Watson  finished  telling  me  his  story  he 
took  a  gold  hunting-case  watch  from  his 
pocket,  opened  it  at  the  back  and  passed  it  to 
me  to  see  the  inscription  which  was  there.  It 
read: 

"From  Archibald  M.  Howe  to  Richard  Wat- 
son." 

Archibald  M.  Howe  is  an  alumnus  of  Har- 
vard University,  and  one  of  the  eminent  at- 
torneys of  New  England.  He  is  also  the 
Chairman  of  the  Board  which  supports  Dick 
Watson's  Prison  Gate  Work.  He  presented 
this  watch  to  Watson  a  few  months  ago,  after 
eight  years  of  association  with  him  in  his  res- 
cue work,  as  a  token  of  his  esteem,  saying  as  he 
placed  it  in  his  hand : 

"To  a  man  who  made  good  and  who  never 
broke  faith." 

That  watch  and  the  speech  to  which  it  was 
73 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

witness  was  to  me  a  final  evidence  of  the  un- 
making of  the  bank  burglar,  but  I  cannot  close 
this  record  without  relating  something  which 
shows  that  the  man,  notwithstanding  his  eight 
faithful  years,  is  still  paying  installments  upon 
the  price  of  his  long  f elonous  career. 

Having  seen  Watson  perhaps  half  a  dozen 
different  times,  and  noticing  that  on  each  occa- 
sion he  wore  a  different  style  of  hat,  I  com- 
mented on  his  varied  taste  in  head-gear,  merely 
as  a  casual  probe  to  some  possible  new  phase 
of  character,  and  to  my  surprise  he  flushed  with 
embarrassment.  After  an  instant  he  said, 
with  an  apologetic  laugh : 

"That  is  just  an  unconscious  habit  that  hangs 
over  from  the  old  days.  A  change  of  hats  is 
one  of  the  simplest  and  most  disconcerting  of 
disguises.  I  suppose  I  have  eight  or  ten  hats, 
and  never  wear  the  same  one  twice  in  succes- 
sion, any  more  than  a  well  dressed  man  re- 
peats with  his  neckties." 

And  then  he  queried,  "Do  you  remember 
touching  me  on  the  shoulder  the  other  day  on 
Congress  Street?" 

74 


THE  UNMAKING  OF  A  BURGLAR 

I  nodded. 

"Well,"  he  said  soberly,  "never  do  that  with 
a  fellow  of  my  experience.  It  gives  a  man  an 
awful  shock!" 

For  an  instant  a  look  of  fear  and  horror 
showed  in  his  eyes,  and  I  caught  a  vision  of 
what  it  means  to  live  every  hour  of  the  day, 
year  after  year,  for  a  lifetime,  unceasingly 
haunted  by  the  thought  that  at  any  moment  a 
heavy  hand  may  be  laid  upon  one's  shoulder 
while  a  harsh  voice  growls:  efl  want 


It  is  fourteen  years  since  Watson  committed 
a  criminal  act  ;  but  his  old  furtive  instincts  still 
influence  him.  His  criminal  conscience  is  gone 
but  his  criminal  consciousness  remains. 
These  old  habits  and  fears  are  the  prison  odors 
upon  him.  They  are  spurs  that  prick  him  to 
his  work.  So  long  as  he  shifts  his  hats,  so  long 
as  the  touch  of  an  unseen  hand  will  send  a 
shiver  to  his  heels,  Watson's  sympathy  with 
men  in  prison  pens  will  not  fail,  and  his  efforts 
to  help  them  will  add  momentum  to  his  own 
progress. 

75 


Ill 

A   MADONNA  FROM    WHITECHAPEL 

ANNIE  O'RouEKE  was  born  in  Ireland.  At 
seven  years  she  came  to  America  and  lived  in 
a  suburban  slum  which  in  some  respects  is  the 
worst  slum  of  all — a  sort  of  American  White- 
chapel,  her  home  was.  She  had  a  drunken 
father  and  a  drinking  mother,  and  there  were 
sisters  and  a  brother  younger  than  herself. 
Despite  the  slum  environment  she  grew  up  in 
the  innocence  of  ignorance.  The  mother,  not- 
withstanding her  own  faults,  aimed  to  be  very 
strict  with  her  daughters ;  but  told  them  noth- 
ing of  the  secrets  of  life  and  aimed  to  protect 
them  from  harm  by  a  rigid  surveillance  instead 
of  teaching  them  to  protect  themselves.  Other 
girls  went  to  theatres,  picture  shows  and  dances 
with  the  young  men  of  the  neighborhood,  but 
Annie  and  her  sisters  did  not. 

Annie  was  the  sole  support  of  the  family  and 
worked  all  day  in  a  candy  factory  which  was 

76  ' 


MADONNA  FROM  WHITECHAPEL 

connected  with  a  confectionery  store.  She  was 
tall,  and  full  of  figure,  with  wonderful  dark 
eyes,  glossy  black  hair,  a  regular  but  rather 
prominent  nose  and  long,  delicately  scrolled 
ruby  lips — a  quite  unusual  Irish  type.  Her 
face  was  as  yet  too  full-fleshed,  and  the  flesh 
too  pasty,  to  be  beautiful,  but  the  promise  of 
the  beauty  she  now  has  was  there. 

Nor  did  her  plodding,  workaday  life  rob  the 
girl  of  her  dower  of  dreams,  those  vague,  ro- 
mantic imaginings  that  come  in  the  years  when 
womanhood  is  waking.  She  had  her  heroes, 
too,  finding  them  even  in  that  American 
Whitechapel  in  which  she  lived.  About  one 
of  these  in  particular,  an  auburn-haired  youth 
whose  first  name  was  Dennis,  her  fancy  dwelt 
most  fondly.  It  did  not  matter  to  her  that  this 
knight  of  her  visions  fared  no  farther  in  quest 
of  adventure  than  the  curbs  and  cellar  pool- 
halls  of  her  own  neighborhood.  He  was  her 
hero.  She  had  watched  him  shoot  up  suddenly 
from  boyhood.  She  had  seen  his  thin  shoulders 
broaden  and  take  on  a  swagger  that  to  her  was 
the  height  of  manliness.  And  she  knew  that 

77 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

he  was  conscious  of  her,  also,  for  he  used  to  look 
at  her  shyly  with  glances  of  admiration. 
These  glances  grew  more  bold,  and  one  day 
something  in  them  made  her  blush. 

A  few  days  after  that  blush,  Dennis  took  her 
to  what,  although  she  was  nineteen  years  old, 
was  her  first  dance.  Annie  could  not  say  that 
she  enjoyed  it.  She  was  too  confused,  too 
much  afraid  that  she  would  reveal  her  unao 
quaintance  with  those  freedoms  and  those  con- 
ventions which  attended  the  free  mingling  of 
the  sexes  in  social  intercourse.  The  very  posi- 
tion in  the  dance  was  at  once  a  shock  and  a  thrill 
to  her,  but  she  did  her  best  to  conform,  to  act 
like  the  other  girls.  When  they  were  led 
breathless  to  their  seats,  sometimes  giggling 
almost  hysterically,  Annie  found  herself  able 
to  give  a  very  fair  imitation  on  her  own  ac- 
count. 

When  beer  was  brought  and  other  liquors 
that  she  did  not  recognize,  though  lots  liking 
the  stuff,  Annie  tried  to  drink  it,  being  fearful 
only  of  seeming  queer  or  "green"  or  by  any  un- 
usual action  causing  embarrassment  to  her 

78 


MADONNA  FROM  WHITECHAPEL 

curb-stone-knight  of  whom  she  was  eo  proud, 
and  to  whom  she  felt  so  grateful.  Her  great 
desire  was  to  please  him,  .her  dream-hero.  She 
felt  she  was  less  beautiful  than  many  of  the 
other  girls,  and  socially  less  skillful.  This 
made  her  determined  to  fill  up  the  measure  of 
her  own  attractiveness  by  failing  nothing  in 
complacence  and  such  pleasure-giving  as  lay  at 
her  command,  so  that  she  would  seem  to  her 
partner  to  have  no  shortcomings  whatever. 

When,  therefore,  late  in  the  evening  Dennis 
proposed  that  instead  of  dancing  the  next  num- 
ber they  should  loiter  it  out  in  the  long  shadowy 
hall  outside  the  ballroom,  this  was  very  agree- 
able to  Annie,  even  though  as  they  entered  the 
shadows  Dennis  drew  her  close  and  kissed  her. 
It  was  Annie's  first  kiss.  She  recoiled,  but 
yielded  again.  Were  not  these  the  warm  lips 
of  her  dream-hero? 

The  shadows  in  the  upper  end  of  the  narrow 
promenade  were  very  deep,  purposely  deep  one 
might  suspect. 

•          *«•«•• 

When  Annie,  feeling  disturbed,  and  with  a 
79 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

vague  sense  of  insult  framing  itself  in  her 
mind,  returned  to  the  dancing  floor,  she  found 
herself  looking  curiously  at  the  faces  of  the 
other  girls  who  went  and  came  to  and  from  that 
shadowy  promenade.  The  meaning  of  the 
dance  had  changed  for  her.  She  had  lost  her 
interest  in  it.  Her  partner  appeared  to  have 
done  the  same.  Soon  after  he  took  her  home. 
They  walked  arm  in  arm  but  stiffly  and  silently 
to  her  doorway.  He  did  not  kiss  her  good-by 
and  she  did  not  ask  him  to  call.  A  breach  had 
come  between  them. 

Nor  did  the  ball  become  a  happy  memory. 
She  decided  that  dances  were  horrid  things,  and 
resolved  never  to  go  to  another.  She  found 
herself  going  blocks  out  of  the  way  that  she 
might  not  meet  the  young  man  who  had  disap- 
pointed her. 

Several  months  after  the  ball  a  very  decided 
conviction  that  she  was  not  well  forced  itself 
upon  Annie's  notice.  She  talked  to  her  mother 
and  sister  about  this  from  time  to  time  but  kept 
at  work — always  at  work.  She  says,  "I  knew 
somethin'  was  the  matter  of  me.  I  wasn'  my- 

80 


MADONNA  FROM  WHITECHAPEL 

self,  but  I  kept  on  workin',  and  was  scared 
when  I  thought  what  might  become  of  the  folks 
if  I  got  sick." 

At  length,  upon  the  recommendation  of  the 
foreman  of  the  candy  factory,  she  decided  upon 
the  extravagance  of  consulting  a  physician. 
He  felt  her  pulse,  looked  at  her  tongue,  and 
asked  her  a  very  strange  question,  to  which  she 
replied  with  a  startled  negative.  It  ended  by 
his  giving  her  a  prescription  for  a  tonic.  But 
Annie's  health  did  not  improve.  After  six 
weeks,  convinced  that  some  strange  malig- 
nancy had  fastened  upon  her,  she  went  again 
to  a  doctor,  this  time  taking  her  mother  with 
her.  They  went  to  a  great  city  hospital,  des- 
perately determined  to  know  what  the  trouble 
was.  Yet  when  the  physician  announced  his 
diagnosis,  Annie's  startled  black  eyes  flashed 
anger.  "It  is  not  true,"  she  declared  vehe- 
mently. 

But  the  doctor,  a  kindly,  knowing  sort  of 
man,  only  looked  at  her  with  a  tender,  quizzical 
glance  and  nodded  his  head  affirmatively. 

"It  cannot  be,"  she  whispered  hoarsely,  "it 
81 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

cannot  be,"  her  eyes  swimming  in  a  flood 
of  reproachful  tears.  But  something  in  the 
doctor's  steady  gaze  broke  down  her  denials. 
Her  face  grew  pale  as  death.  A  chill  crept 
over  her.  All  the  tardy  womanly  intuitions 
that  had  been  knocking  for  months  at  the  doors 
of  consciousness  suddenly  rushed  in  and  took 
possession  of  her  mind.  How  it  could  be  true, 
in  her  simple  ignorance  the  girl  could  not  un- 
derstand, but  that  it  was  true,  horribly  true,  she 
suddenly  ceased  to  doubt.  A  terrible  sense  of 
shame  came  over  her.  She  dropped  her  face 
upon  the  table,  convulsed  with  sobs  and  moans 
that  brought  her  mother  storming  in  from  the 
ante-room  to  know  what  was  the  matter  with 
her  child.  She  was  told.  .  .  . 

There  among  strangers  Annie  had  to  face 
the  reproaches  of  her  mother,  and  was  quite 
unable  to  make  her  believe  that  she  was  inno- 
cent. Yet  just  now  the  girl  cared  more  about 
that  than  anything  else.  She  had  not  meant 
to  sin.  She  did  not  know  she  had  sinned.  She 
only  thought  she  had  been  insulted,  that  ad- 
vantage had  been  taken  of  her  foolish  but  well 

82 


MADONNA  FROM  WHITECHAPEL 

meant  complacence.  Her  sole  grain  of  com- 
fort lay  in  the  fact  that  the  big,  kind-hearted 
doctor  believed  her.  He  understood,  and  was 
like  a  father  to  her,  while  her  own  mother 
seemed  to  be  thinking  more  about  the  loss  of 
Annie's  earnings  than  about  the  blight  that 
had  come  upon  her  daughter's  life. 

"What  are  we  goin'  to  do?"  the  mother  de- 
manded as  they  went  out.  "What's  to  become 
of  us?" 

"I  will  take  care  of  you,  just  the  same," 
murmured  the  girl,  humbled  and  mystified  by 
the  sudden  shadow  of  a  tragedy  she  was  strug- 
gling to  comprehend,  and  she  repeated  over 
and  over  again,  "I  will  take  care  of  you,  just 
the  same,"  speaking  in  mournful,  unmodulated 
tones  through  which  a  dry  sob  seemed  always 
trying  to  break. 

Annie  had  no  one  to  advise  her  sympatheti- 
cally— no  one  to  help  her  think.  At  home  she 
crouched  by  herself  for  hours  in  a  sort  of 
stunned  silence,  and  when  darkness  came  stole 
out  to  look  for  Dennis.  She  found  him  under 
the  gas-light  glare,  but  he  readily  walked  aside 

83 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

with  her.  While  her  cheeks  flushed  hot  and  her 
voice  choked,  she  told  him  what  she  had  to  tell. 
Dennis  listened  curiously,  but  abruptly  de- 
clined responsibility.  Annie  was  dum- 
founded. 

For  a  time  she  stared  at  him  fixedly,  and 
then  wilted  like  a  blasted  flower.  Hardly 
knowing  what  she  did,  actuated  by  a  sort  of 
instinct,  she  lifted  the  shawl  from  her  shoul- 
ders till  it  covered  her  head  and  shrouded  her 
face  completely,  and  after  standing  before  him 
for  a  moment  motionless — the  accusing  token 
of  the  woman  he  had  shamed — slowly,  with  one 
last  search  for  pity  in  his  eyes,  turned  and 
slipped  dejectedly  back  toward  her  home, 
walking  as  much  as  possible  in  the  shadows. 

The  next  day  Annie  was  back  in  the  candy 
factory.  Fortunately,  although  tall,  she  was 
full  of  figure.  Lacing  herself  tightly,  she  ex- 
plained to  her  fellow-workers  that  she  was  get- 
ting temporary  help  from  a  doctor,  but  would 
soon  go  away  for  a  brief  vacation  from  which 
she  would  come  back  perfectly  well. 

One  morning  two  weeks  after  this  vacation 
84 


MADONNA  FROM  WHITECHAPEL 

time  came,  she  lay  sunk  upon  the  pillows  in  a 
hospital.  Her  feeling  was  one  of  relief  and 
exhaustion. 

"How  long  before  I  can  go  back  to  work?" 
she  asked  the  doctor. 

The  doctor  regarded  her  with  lifted  brows. 
This  was  not  the  usual  first  question. 

"Three  weeks  at  least,"  he  answered  gently, 
his  manner  softening  as  he  saw  apprehension 
cloud  the  girl's  face,  and  felt  the  pity  of  it. 
He  knew  Annie  was  thinking  of  her  old  re- 
sponsibility, the  home.  She  had  not  realized 
that  she  had  a  new  responsibility. 

A  few  minutes  later  the  nurse  held  a  rosy 
baby  boy  before  the  girl-mother's  face. 

"He  looked  up  at  me  with  that  kind  of  a  cute 
recognizin'  way  you  know,  like  he  knew  I  be- 
longed to  him,"  says  Annie,  "and  all  at  once  it 
come  onto  me  that  I  was  his  mother.  I  never 
thought  of  that  before,  just  of  getting  rid  of 
my  trouble  and  back  to  work;  but  when  I 
looked  into  his  eyes  I  saw  different.  I  was 
kind  of  'fraid  of  him,  but  he  got  his  little  fin- 
gers, no  bigger  than  nothing  at  all,  'round  one 

85 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

of  mine,  and  he  wouldn't  let  go.  It  was  won- 
derful!" 

From  this  moment  the  new  Annie,  the  one 
who  is  worth  telling  about,  began  to  grow. 
Up  to  this  point  the  experience  of  Annie  has 
been  very  like  that  of  thousands  upon  thou- 
sands of  other  girls  each  year  in  our  American 
cities;  from  this  on  it  is  very  different,  for  the 
baby,  instead  of  reminding  Annie  of  her  shame, 
made  her  forget  it.  New  and  mysterious  feel- 
ings came  to  her.  God  had  honored  her  with 
this  wonderful  sacred  trust.  She  began  to 
experience  the  sanctifying  and  ennobling  influ- 
ence of  motherhood.  Daily  the  infant  drew 
life  from  her  breasts,  and  daily  she  felt  her- 
self drawing  life  from  him.  She  was  unawed 
by  those  hard  social  conventions  which  she  had 
unintentionally  violated.  She  was  a  mother. 
She  resolved  that  she  would  devote  her  life  to 
her  maternity. 

After  two  weeks  instead  of  three, — Annie 
could  not  be  idle  so  long, — she  corseted  her  ach- 
ing breasts  and  went  again  to  the  candy  fac- 
tory. Her  associates  inquired  about  her  va- 

86 


MADONNA  FROM  WHITECHAPEL 

cation  and  she  boasted  of  it  bravely  with  many 
cheerful,  lying  details.  They  asked  her  how 
she  felt,  and  when  her  back  ached  like  a  tooth- 
ache, and  her  bosoms  were  two  raging  fires,  she 
declared  with  a  costly  smile  that  she  "felt 
great."  They  looked  enviously  at  the  roses  on 
her  cheeks  and  did  not  know  that  they  were 
pinched,  nor  what  brave  falsehoods  the  girl  had 
spoken. 

Annie  had  secured  a  home  for  her  baby  in 
the  country.  After  paying  his  board  of  $2.50 
a  week,  she  devoted  the  balance  of  her  $9.00 
per  week  to  the  support  of  the  family.  Six 
days  in  the  week  she  was  a  burden-bearer.  On 
the  seventh  day  she  was  a  mother  and  went  to 
see  her  baby. 

But  material  complications  multiplied. 
Annie  found  living  very,  very  hard.  Be- 
tween $2.50  for  the  baby  and  $6.50  for  the 
family  there  was  nothing  at  all  for  herself. 
She  had  always  dressed  neatly.  Her  stand- 
ards of  life  had  not  been  lowered.  Instead 
they  were  rising.  Besides,  the  baby  must  have 
clothes.  To  get  more  money  Annie  deter- 

87 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

mined  upon  a  supreme  sacrifice.  Every  other 
Sunday  she  gave  up  that  priceless  privilege,  a 
day  in  the  country  with  her  baby  in  her  arms, 
and  earned  another  dollar  by  serving  as  an 
extra  girl  in  the  candy  store. 

But  how  far  would  a  dollar  a  fortnight  go  ? 

Annie  discontinued  her  support  of  the  fam- 
ily and  offered  to  pay  $4.00  a  week  for  her 
board  instead.  There  were  stormings  and 
pleadings,  but  the  young  mother  was  firm. 

Annie  had  named  the  baby  Dennis  after  his 
father,  but  called  him  Dinnie.  He  grew  with 
amazing  rapidity.  Weeks  and  months 
streamed  past  like  trolley  poles.  Before  his 
mother  could  realize  it  the  boy  was  two  years 
old  and  Annie  began  to  have  visions  of  his  fu- 
ture. She  dreamed  of  giving  him  an  educa- 
tion. He  was  affectionate  and  full  of  merry 
pranks,  a  bright  and  promising  child.  He 
must  have  the  best.  He  might  be  a  Lincoln  or 
a  Washington.  His  mother  resolved  to  stint 
him  nothing.  She  began  to  save  against  the 
cost  of  his  education,  but  the  fund  grew  too 
slowly. 

88 


MADONNA  FROM  WHITECHAPEL 

Annie  cast  covetous  eyes  on  the  $4.00  per 
week  she  was  paying  her  mother  for  board. 
Surely  she  could  live  a  week  on  less  than  that. 
Besides,  as  her  ideals  rose  the  atmosphere  of  her 
own  home  with  its  drunken  brawling  and  bick- 
ering became  unbearable.  She  felt  it  was  not 
the  proper  atmosphere  for  the  mother  of  Din- 
nie.  Resolutely  packing  all  her  belongings 
into  an  old  telescope  hamper,  she  moved  into  a 
tiny  stall  on  the  fourth  floor  of  a  smudgy  room- 
ing house  several  blocks  from  her  mother's 
home.  Her  kitchen  range  was  a  gas  jet. 
Her  pantry  was  a  paper  bag.  Her  laundry 
was  a  washbowl.  But  even  this  did  not  in- 
crease the  savings  fast  enough.  As  Dinnie 
grew  older  and  would  require  more  clothes  his 
living  would  cost  more,  Annie  saw  she  would 
be  able  to  save  less  and  less.  She  computed 
that  it  would  take  twenty-five  years  to  save 
money  to  put  Dinnie  through  college  and  by 
that  time,  of  course,  he  would  be  too  old  to  send 
to  college  at  all.  There  must  be  still  greater 
economy  now.  Living  costs  must  come  down. 

She  heard  of  an  institution  where  she  could 
89 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

have  her  boy  boarded  for  $1.00  per  week  in- 
stead of  $2.50.  But  a  new  complication  arose. 
The  foster-mother  could  not  give  him  up.  The 
merry-souled  boy  had  twined  himself  about  her 
heart.  She  offered  to  board  him  for  the  $1.00 
per  week,  or  for  nothing  even. 

But  Annie  would  consider  no  charity.  She 
says  simply, 

"I  wasn't  going  to  have  him  live  so  he  could 
say,  'I  don't  owe  you  for  my  bringing  up.' 
He  could  blame  me  for  not  having  a  father,  but 
I  wasn't  a-going  to  have  him  blaming  me  for 
anything  else." 

About  this  time,  too,  Annie  got  one  more 
heartache  through  realizing  that  Dinnie  had 
learned  to  love  the  foster-mother  as  if  she  were 
his  own.  This  was  natural  enough.  He  saw 
her  thirteen  days  in  the  fortnight  and  his  real 
mother  but  twelve  hours  on  the  fourteenth  day. 
She  was  only  like  some  benevolent  aunt.  This 
bit  savagely  into  Annie's  heart.  She  racked 
her  brain  day  and  night  for  a  plan  to  get  Din- 
nie completely  into  her  possession,  but  could 
see  no  way. 

90 


MADONNA  FROM  WHITECHAPEL 

In  the  meantime  dreams  of  Dinnie's  educa- 
tion caused  the  young  mother  to  be  oppressed 
with  a  sense  of  her  own  ignorance.  An  oppor- 
tunity presented  to  attend  night  school,  and 
she  embraced  it  eagerly,  resolving  Dinnie 
should  never  know  his  mother  had  once  been 
ignorant.  And  now  for  a  time  Annie  had  the 
delightful  consciousness  that  she  was  forging 
ahead.  She  was  caring  for  her  boy  and  saving 
money  for  his  education.  She  was  also  im- 
proving herself.  But  one  painful  thought  was 
never  absent  from  her  mind;  one  obstacle 
seemed  insurmountable.  Her  boy  had  no 
father.  She  could  not  give  him  that.  No 
matter  how  hard  she  slaved,  no  matter  how  bit- 
terly she  economized,  she  could  not  save  enough 
to  buy  her  boy  a  name.  Cheerfully  bear- 
ing every  other  burden,  she  brooded  over 
this. 

"It  ain't  fair  to  him ;  it  ain't  fair  to  him,"  she 
would  murmur  as  she  diagrammed  a  sentence 
or  conned  a  history  lesson.  Often  her  mind 
ran  down  the  years  to  the  day  when  for  the 
first  time  the  boys  of  the  neighborhood  should 

91 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

fling  at  him  the  hateful  taunt,  and  he,  with 
flaming  cheeks,  and  his  innocent,  surprised 
eyes,  full  of  the  shimmering  light  of  tears, 
would  run  in  to  dart  that  awful  questioning 
look  into  his  mother's  face.  Determined  to 
risk  any  humiliation  to  save  him  from  this,  she 
resolved  upon  one  more  plea  to  his  father. 
For  herself  she  desired  nothing,  but  if,  for  the 
sake  of  the  boy,  Dennis  would  only  marry  her 
and  leave  her,  that  would  be  sufficient. 

Acting  upon  this  new  resolution,  Annie  sent 
word  to  Dennis  to  come  and  see  her.  He  did 
not  respond,  but  a  few  evenings  later,  on  the 
way  home  from  night  school  with  her  books 
under  her  arm,  she  met  him. 

"Just  to  give  him  a  name,  Dennis,  that's  all 
I  care  about,"  she  pleaded.  "I'm  not  asking 
anything  for  myself.  I'm  to  blame  for  trust- 
ing you.  He  ain't  to  blame  for  anything  but 
being  helpless  and  innocent." 

But  Dennis  made  no  reply  to  this  plea.  In- 
stead he  asked  coarsely, 

"What  yer  goin'  to  tell  him  about  his  dad 
when  he  grows  up?" 

92 


MADONNA  FROM  WHITECHAPEL 

A  bit  of  eloquence  flamed  out  of  the  breast 
of  the  girl  whose  mind  was  growing  rapidly. 

"I  shall  tell  him,"  she  said,  "that  his  father 
is  dead,  buried  in  the  hole  of  his  own  brutal 
selfishness," — and  she  added,  dropping  into  a 
less  exalted  strain — "I'll  teach  him  how  to 
treat  a  woman  and  if  she  gets  in  trouble  to 
stand  by  her. 

"How  are  you  going  to  feel,"  she  continued, 
"when  he's  a  man  grown  like  you  are,  and  you 
see  him  going  up  and  down  the  street,  your 
hair?  your  eyes?  your  mouth  and  your  shoul- 
ders and  you'll  know  he's  your  boy?  And 
what  do  you  think  he'll  do  to  you?  Say!" 
Beside  herself  for  a  moment,  she  gripped  his 
shoulders  fiercely.  "And  what  do  you  think 
God'll  do  to  you?' 

Dennis  shook  her  off  with  a  shrug,  but  for 
hours  they  walked  back  and  forth  under  the 
trees  in  the  park,  sometimes  deep  in  the 
shadows,  and  again  out  under  the  glare  of  the 
arc-lights.  Annie's  face  was  alternately  dry 
and  tear-stained,  her  cheeks  went  white  and 
red,  as  she  pleaded  with  every  power  she  could 

93 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

command  for  the  honor  of  wedlock  and  a  name 
for  her  boy. 

But  it  was  all  useless,  for  in  the  end  Dennis 
only  insulted  her  by  offering  the  nameless 
place  of  a  kept  mistress  with  a  hazy  promise  of 
possible  marriage  at  some  distant  day. 

Worn  out  with  her  pleading  and  heavy  with 
disappointment,  Annie  heard  this  proposal  in 
disgusted  silence.  Dennis  mistook  her  silence 
for  hesitation.  As  the  clock  was  striking  mid- 
night he  gripped  her  elbows,  thrust  his  broad 
face  almost  into  hers,  and  demanded  impa- 
tiently. 

"Which  shall  it  be?  You  an'  the  kid  alone, 
or  you  for  mine  when  I  want  you?  Answer 
me,  yes  or  no?" 

A  great  strength  came  into  Annie's  body. 
With  a  sudden  sweep  of  her  arms  she  broke  his 
hold. 

"No!  No!  Forever  no!"  she  cried  vehe- 
mently, and  snatched  up  her  books  and  fled. 

While  still  oppressed  by  the  feeling  of  de- 
jection and  loneliness  which  flowed  out  of  this 
incident,  Annie  sensed  a  fresh  calamity  impend- 

94 


MADONNA  FROM  WHITECHAPEL 

ing.  This  was  the  threatened  collapse  of  her 
health.  For  three  years  she  had  toiled  without 
a  holiday.  For  six  months  she  had  been  liv- 
ing alone  on  hastily  prepared,  improperly 
cooked  and  unhealthfully  economized  meals. 
The  result  might  have  been  anticipated,  yet 
Annie,  happily  busy  in  her  sacrifices,  was  sur- 
prised and  terrified  when  illness  dogged  her 
heels  closer  and  closer  at  the  end  of  each  drag- 
ging day.  A  morning  came  when  she  was  un- 
able to  arise.  She  summoned  in  vain  the  will- 
power which  had  carried  her  through  other 
crises.  Her  vitality  was  sapped  to  the  bottom. 
But  starvation  was  not  the  spectre  that  fright- 
ened her.  She  had  some  savings.  These 
might  tide  her  over  illness;  but  they  were  not 
her  savings,  they  were  for  Dinnie.  Loss  of 
health  would  cause  the  loss  of  the  desperate 
battle  she  was  fighting  to  keep  her  place  in  the 
heart  of  the  boy.  She  had  no  fear  that  he 
would  starve — his  foster-mother  loved  him  too 
well — but  only  that  she  would  lose  him  out  of 
her  life. 

This  was  unquestionably  the  darkest  hour  in 
95 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

Annie's  five  year  struggle.  Toward  noon  her 
strength  rallied  and  she  was  able  to  go  out,  but 
work  was  impossible.  Through  the  doctor  in 
the  hospital  she  had  met  a  sympathetic  woman 
whose  advice  and  encouragement  had  been  of 
great  help  to  her.  She  resolved  to  go  to  this 
woman  now,  and  at  least  lighten  her  burden  by 
the  telling  of  it.  This  proved  the  most  fortu- 
nate thing  the  perplexed  young  mother  could 
possibly  have  done,  for  the  woman,  it  appeared, 
had  watched  Annie's  struggle  with  growing  re- 
spect. The  hopelessness  of  the  present  situa- 
tion moved  her  deeply,  and  she  appealed  to  a 
charitable  association  with  the  result  that  Annie 
was  accorded  a  six  weeks'  vacation  at  the  sea- 
shore without  cost  to  herself  and  was  permitted 
to  take  her  baby  with  her. 

The  bliss  of  that!  Annie's  joy  and  relief 
were  irrepressible.  For  the  first  time  she 
could  be  a  real  all-the-day-long  and  all-the- 
night-long  mother.  She  could  see  her  boy  rub 
his  eyes  open  in  the  morning.  She  could  kiss 
him  to  sleep  at  night.  She  could  play  by  day 
with  him  upon  the  sands  and  forget  her  weak- 

96 


MADONNA  FROM  WHITECHAPEL 

ness  in  sheer  delight  over  his  droll  antics. 
When  his  laughter  sounded  above  the  chuckles 
of  the  wavelets,  as  they  played  a  frothy  game 
of  hide-and-seek  with  his  small  toes,  his  mother 
was  beside  herself  with  joy.  Unnumbered 
times  in  the  course  of  each  morning  she  called 
him  to  her  and  hugged  him,  pinched  him,  all  but 
hurt  him,  just  to  make  sure  that  he  was  real  and 
that  he  was  hers. 

This  six  weeks  at  the  ocean  almost  completed 
the  remaking  of  Annie.  It  re-made  her  phys- 
ically. It  re-made  her  mentally  and  spiritu- 
ally. She  was  free  of  cares.  She  had  time  to 
think  and  to  feel  and  to  hope.  The  whole 
world  had  been  made  new  and  she  was  made 
new  for  the  world.  In  this  new  world  she  and 
the  boy  must  be  together  always.  She  could 
endure  no  more  separations.  She  could  work 
no  longer  for  thirteen  days,  masquerading  as  an 
unmarried  "Miss"  in  a  candy  factory,  silencing 
every  inclination  to  babble  of  her  happy 
motherhood,  and  then  go  in  the  fourteenth  day 
and  seek  to  lavish  all  that  repressed  and  ac- 
cumulated affection  in  a  few  short  hours  upon 

97 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

her  child.  The  separation  must  end.  But 
how? — how  was  this  to  be  brought  about? 

Will  the  reader  think  hard  that  this  girl- 
mother  decided  upon  a  subterfuge?  She  de- 
termined when  her  recuperation  was  finished  to 
go  away  to  a  factory  town  where  she  was  not 
known,  to  write  "Mrs."  before  her  name,  and 
wear  a  widow's  weeds.  Her  boy  could  never 
then  make  necessary  any  awkward  explana- 
tions. 

But  the  plan  had  one  weakness.  There  was 
one  way  in  which  it  was  not  perfectly  adapted 
to  Annie.  It  was  not  true.  Annie's  whole 
life  had  been  one  of  sincerity.  To  be  true,  she 
had  carried  the  burden  of  family  support.  To 
be  true,  as  she  ignorantly  thought,  to  her 
dream-hero,  she  had  exposed  herself  to  mother- 
hood. To  be  true  to  her  baby,  she  had  saved 
and  stinted  and  starved  herself.  It  might  have 
been  foreseen  that  she  would  find  it  impossible 
to  lie  or  to  live  a  lie  for  him. 

Annie  tried  it,  but  after  a  few  months  as  a 
f orelady  in  a  factory  in  a  city  far  enough  away 
and  large  enough  to  minimize  the  danger  of 

98 


MADONNA  FROM  WHITECHAPEL 

discovery  by  any  of  her  old  acquaintances,  she 
appeared  abruptly  in  Whitechapel,  bringing  a 
child  with  her,  three  years  old,  with  blue,  smil- 
ing eyes  and  curling  ringlets  of  hair.  White- 
chapel  had  never  seen  the  boy  before. 

"It  is  no  use,"  she  explained  to  the  woman 
who  had  helped  her  to  the  vacation  at  the  sea- 
shore, "I  will  not  live  a  lie." 

This  decision  marked  the  final  step  in  Annie's 
evolution  into  the  fullness  of  honest  mother- 
hood. She  was  determined  to  be  a  mother  to 
her  boy  in  all  ways.  She  refused  longer  to  let 
fear  of  public  opinion  separate  her  from  him  or 
drive  her  to  a  lie.  Here  in  Whitechapel, 
where  everyone  knew  her,  she  determined  to 
make  a  stand  for  the  honor  and  respect  of  her 
neighbors  and  the  world. 

As  a  means  of  livelihood,  she  decided  to  in- 
vest her  savings  in  a  small  store.  On  account 
of  her  experience  in  the  candy  factory  she 
thought  at  first  of  a  soda  fountain  but  aban- 
doned the  idea  because  "it  might  tempt  the 
poor  people  to  buy  what  they  oughtn't  to." 

Instead  Annie  put  in  a  stock  of  notions, 
99 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

periodicals  and  such  merchandise  as  she  felt 
would  give  a  genuine  value  to  purchasers. 
But  the  best  value  Annie  gave  to  this  commu- 
nity which  had  known  her  always  was  the  ex- 
ample of  her  own  courage  and  sincerity.  For 
Dinnie,  too,  went  into  the  little  store.  He 
played  in  and  out  under  the  feet  of  customers. 
On  him  Annie  lavished  openly  a  mother's  love, 
and  he  returned  to  her  as  openly  and  frankly  a 
son's  affections.  Beyond  this  Annie  offered 
no  explanation  because  she  knew  no  explana- 
tion could  ever  do  her  justice. 

Of  course  there  were  busy  lips  and  eyes 
askance  in  the  community.  Rumors  of  the 
truth  and  stories  of  blackest  falsehood  flew 
about.  That  fine  delicacy  of  the  poor  spared 
Annie  some  of  this  but  she  was  compelled  to 
endure  much.  With  white  patient  face  she 
held  on  her  way.  Some  part  of  the  population 
avoided  the  little  shop  like  a  plague  spot,  yet 
slowly  custom  grew.  Annie's  life  of  unseem- 
ing  faithfulness  and  her  habit  of  never  drop- 
ping a  bitter  or  an  unkind  word,  was  the  most 
telling  answer  to  calumny  and  the  best  possible 

100 


MADONNA  FROM  WHITECHAPEL 

attest  of  virtue.  Bye  and  bye  Whitechapel,  or 
the  better  part  of  it,  began  to  respect  Annie, 
both  for  her  character  and  her  attainments. 
She  read  much.  Her  mind  continued  to  de- 
velop rapidly.  She  became  a  sort  of  moral 
center  in  the  community.  Many  were  the 
warnings  to  young  girls  against  extravagan- 
ces, dangerous  amusements,  associations  and 
ambitions,  that  she  tied  up  with  the  little  pack- 
ages of  merchandise  that  crossed  her  counters. 

Her  own  experience  had  made  her  peculiarly 
sensitive  to  the  dangers  that  beset  girls  through 
ignorance  and  vanity.  To  mothers  she  often 
said, 

"Tell  your  daughters  everything.  Don't 
think  they  know.  Be  sure  they  know." 

To  the  young  girls  she  says  over  and  over 
again : 

"Be  careful — keep  straight — it's  the  only 
way  a  girl's  got  a  chance  in  the  world.  It's  the 
only  way  that  don't  bring  suffering  in  the  end." 

And  the  girls  look  up  into  her  sad,  dark  eyes 
and  listen  with  a  kind  of  awe,  for  they  know 
that  she  knows. 

101 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

To-day  Dinnie  is  five  years  old,  and  is  ful- 
filling every  promise  of  babyhood.  The  most 
of  Whitechapel  know  his  story,  the  true  story, 
from  the  friends  of  his  mother,  and  the  falsely 
slanderous  story  set  afloat  by  the  father  of  the 
boy  to  shield  himself — and  it  takes  its  choice 
between  the  two,  believing  what  it  wishes  to 
believe,  according  to  the  fashion  of  society, 
high  and  low,  the  world  over. 

The  little  store  prospers  and  Dinnie  will  get 
his  education.  Annie's  cultural  ambitions 
prosper  also.  She  has  lost  the  flat-footed 
walk  of  the  over-tired  factory  toiler.  Her 
English  has  improved  amazingly.  Indeed  it 
is  only  when  she  quotes  her  own  speeches  in 
some  crisis  of  bitter  days  now  past  or  in  mo- 
ments of  intense  emotion  that  her  language  or 
sentence  construction  betrays  a  slum  origin. 
Besides  all  this,  Annie  is  engaged  to  be  mar- 
ried! 

Her  lover,  Charles  Dunham,  is  a  worthy, 
up-battling  sort  of  young  fellow  who,  in  his 
own  struggle  to  rise  out  of  the  slums,  has 
learned  what  is  virtue  and  what  is  not,  and  has 

102 


1*3 

O 


MADONNA  FROM  WHITECHAPEL 

apprehended  something  of  the  value  of  char- 
acter. He  fell  to  going  to  the  little  store  for 
his  periodicals.  Presently  he  fell  to  loving  its 
proprietor.  He  had  never  heard  the  story  of 
Dinnie,  and  was  too  much  concerned  with  the 
beauty  of  Annie  to  raise  a  question  about  the 
child.  But  the  comings  and  goings  of  this 
fine,  clean  young  man  were  marked  with 
scowling  eye  by  Dennis,  the  tawdry,  coarsen- 
ing bully  who  had  robbed  Annie  of  her  honor. 
With  wickedly  false  slanders  he  had  sought 
repeatedly  since  to  smirch  her  reputation, 
because  he  rightly  regarded  her  growing  good 
name  in  the  neighborhood  as  a  reflection  upon 
himself.  But  there  was  yet  one  final  cowardly 
blow  he  could  strike  at  the  woman  who  had  so 
nearly  wiped  out  his  stain  upon  her ;  and  there 
was  yet  one  final  bit  of  fowlness  in  his  nature 
that  led  him  to  wish  to  strike  that  blow. 

He  lay  in  wait  for  Annie's  lover  one  night 
to  say  in  a  whining  voice  and  with  a  significant 
jerk  of  his  thumb  toward  the  little  shop: 

"She's  got  a  brat,  I  want  you  to  know,  and 
they  say  it's  mine !" 

103 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

The  next  night  when  Charlie  was  making  his 
customary  call  in  the  living  room  at  the  back 
of  the  little  store,  he  leaned  over  the  cot  where 
Dinnie  was  asleep,  and  asked  softly: 

"What  about  him?" 

Annie  was  white  and  startled  for  a  moment, 
but  knowing  the  question  to  be  inevitable,  she 
told  the  story  bravely,  in  a  low  tone,  sparing 
herself  nothing. 

When  the  narrative  was  half  finished  Charlie 
could  contain  his  indignation  no  longer. 
"Wait!  Wait!"  he  ground  between  clenched 
teeth,  "till  I  go  and  kill  that  puppy,  and  then 
I'll  come  back  and  hear  the  rest." 

But  Annie  laid  a  hand  upon  his  arm. 

"I've  suffered  enough  to  pay  for  his  sin  and 
mine  too,"  she  said  solemnly.  "There's  noth- 
ing against  him  in  my  heart.  Sit  down." 

And  the  big  giant  of  a  man  feeling  strangely 
weak  with  her  hand  and  her  eyes  upon  him, 
obeyed. 

When  the  girl  had  finished  her  simple  unac- 
cented narrative,  Charlie  sat  a  moment  in  si- 
lence. He  felt  that  he  had  something  impor- 

104 


MADONNA  FROM  WHITECHAPEL 

tant  to  say,  and  must  say  it  now;  but  with  the 
utmost  delicacy. 

After  an  interval  he  bent  over  the  sleeping 
child  again  and  asked,  in  a  voice  full  of  un- 
derstanding: 

"Annie,  will  you  let  me  be  a  father  to  him?" 

In  a  few  months — perhaps  before  this  is 
published — Annie  will  be  married.  She  has 
won  her  way  back  to  honor.  Of  course,  as  a 
matter  of  absolute,  marrow-bone  truth,  Annie 
never  lost  her  honor;  yet  after  the  hastily 
framed,  illy  informed  judgment  of  this  man's 
world,  which  makes  a  woman  suffer  when 
sinned  against,  exactly  as  when  the  sin  is  of 
her  own  contriving,  Annie  had  fallen.  The 
majority  of  "fallen"  women  so-called,  are  not 
fallen;  they  have  been  cast  down;  but  Annie 
O'Rourke  refused  even  to  be  cast  down.  She 
insisted  on  remaining  up — and  public  opinion, 
the  despot!  must  now  admit  that  she  is  up, 
and  that  she  is  a  very  much  finer,  worthier, 
deeper-souled  woman  than  she  would  have 
been  if  no  such  brutal  accident  had  befallen 

105 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

her.  Indeed,  it  was  the  very  fight  which 
Annie  made  for  the  baby's  right  to  life  and  the 
good-will  of  men,  that  passed  her  through  the 
waters  of  purification.  It  was  motherhood 
that  made  her  strong  and  ennobled  and  deep- 
ened her,  teaching  her  to  replace  innocence 
with  virtue,  ignorance  with  education,  amiabil- 
ity with  character,  so  that  Annie  stands  to-day 
redeemed  by  the  consequences  of  her  own  mis1 
chance. 


106 


IV 

THE  CASE  OF  EYTtNGE 

Louis  VICTOR  EYTINGE — pronounce  it  et'- 
tinge — is  a  man  who  is  serving  a  life  sentence 
in  Arizona  State  Prison  for  murder. 

The  first  impression  Eytinge  made  upon  the 
outside  world  was  by  his  letters.  Those  let- 
ters have  no  whine  in  them.  They  contain 
no  mouthings  of  bitterness;  but,  on  the  con- 
trary, breathe  optimism  and — strangest  of  all 
— contentment;  but,  of  course,  contentment 
with  hope. 

They  may  be  business  letters,  in  which  event 
they  are  crisp  and  pulling.  They  may  be  let- 
ters of  friendship,  in  which  event  they  will 
sparkle  with  brains  and  humor,  as  well  as  beat 
with  a  pulse  that  is  warm  and  human.  These 
friendship  letters,  and  even  the  business  ones, 
have  a  mysterious  power  to  kindle  affection 
for  the  man  behind  the  typewriter;  so  that  over 

107 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

the  country  to-day  grows  a  little  circle  of  men 
and  women,  lecturers,  writers,  advertising  ex- 
perts, wholesale  merchants,  and  business  ideal- 
ists generally,  who,  though  they  have  never 
seen  the  man,  are  proud  to  call  the  life  termer 
friend,  and  speak  of  him  with  respect  and  af- 
fection. 

Some  of  the  great  publishers  and  manufac- 
turers of  America  have  solicited  the  assistance 
of  Mr.  Eytinge  in  preparing  series  of  form  let- 
ters, to  be  used  by  them  in  selling  direct 
through  the  mails.  Recently  "Letters,"  a 
Chicago  trade  journal,  devoted  nearly  an  issue 
to  a  consideration  of  some  series  of  letters  pre- 
pared by  this  convict,  and  concluded  by  say- 
ing: 

"A  study  of  Eytinge's  style — of  his  reason- 
ing— will  pay  any  man.  Every  letter  rings 
with  his  personality — each  is  direct,  convinc- 
ing, and  no  opportunity  has  gotten  by  where 
he  could  show  a  greater  interest,  render  greater 
service,  cement  and  double-rivet  the  tie  that 
binds — true  friendship." 

But  Eytinge's  letters  have  not  only  power 
108 


THE  CASE  OF  EYTINGE 

to  persuade  to  business  ends.  By  the  power 
of  a  letter  he  whipped  a  man  in  an  Eastern 
State,  whom  he  had  never  seen,  out  of  drunk- 
enness into  sobriety;  after  which  more  letters 
got  this  reconstructed  drunkard  into  the  em- 
ploy of  another  correspondence  friend  in  a 
position  that  promises  to  be  worth  more  than 
ten  thousand  dollars  a  year. 

Naturally  people  ask:  What  kind  of  a 
prisoner  is  it  who  can  write  such  letters? 
And :  What  kind  of  a  prison  is  it  where  they 
allow  a  convict  to  throw  his  mind  over  the  walls 
to  the  far  borders  of  a  continent? 

Answering  the  former  question  first,  this 
prisoner,  though  still  young,  has  a  long  record 
that  is  deliberately,  skillfully,  and  viciously 
criminal — a  career  in  which  there  is  little  to 
excite  sympathy  and  less  on  which  to  ground 
a  hope. 

And  yet,  bad  as  Louis  Eytinge  has  been,  it 
is  permitted  at  the  very  outset  to  relieve  the 
feelings  of  the  reader  by  saying  that  there  is 
a  serious  doubt  in  the  minds  of  many  as  to 
whether  he  ever  took  the  life  of  a  fellow  being. 

109 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

He  went  to  drive  upon  the  desert  outside  of 
Phoenix  with  a  sick  man  whom  he  had  be- 
friended and  who  had  trusted  him.  He  came 
hack  alone.  The  companion  was  found  dead, 
his  pockets  rifled,  and  an  empty  chloroform 
can  in  the  bushes  near  at  hand.  Eytinge,  with 
a  trail  of  forged  checks  between  him  and  the 
scene  of  death,  was  arrested  1,000  miles  away 
with  some  of  the  dead  man's  property  in  his 
possession.  That,  in  brief,  was  the  circum- 
stantial case  upon  which  a  conviction  was  se- 
cured. It  may  appear  conclusive.  But  to 
many  it  is  not.  There  exists  a  doubt.  Judge 
A.  C.  Baker  of  Phoenix,  who  defended  Ey- 
tinge, became  so  exercised  by  this  doubt  that  he 
paid  the  expenses  of  an  appeal  out  of  his  own 
pocket.  William  A.  Pinkerton,  the  detective, 
is  quoted  as  saying  it  was  improbable  that  Ey- 
tinge was  guilty  of  murder,  as  his  criminal  bent 
did  not  gallop  in  that  direction. 

At  the  trial  it  was  urged  that  the  corpus  de- 
licti was  not  sufficiently  proved.  Dead,  the 
sick  barber  was,  no  doubt  of  that ;  but  there  was 
no  proof  that  he  was  not  dead  of  tuberculosis, 

110 


THE  CASE  OF  EYTINGE 

or  asthma,  or  a  weak  heart,  from  all  three  of 
which  he  suffered. 

And  so  the  doubt — which  in  some  quarters 
grows  to  a  positive  belief  in  his  innocence. 

Ey tinge  is  a  member  of  a  well  known  family 
of  artists,  actors,  and  musicians,  some  of  whom 
have  gained  a  place  in  the  esteem  of  their  times. 
He  was  born  in  a  central  State.  His  father 
was  actor,  broker,  speculator,  gambler,  by 
turns.  His  parents  were  divorced  when  he 
was  three  years  old.  On  its  face  this  looks  to 
have  been  unfortunate.  It  may  not  have  been. 
The  boy  had  an  abundant  share  of  love  from 
his  mother  and  relatives,  and  plenty  of  money 
— too  much  money.  He  had  good  looks  and  a 
rare  power  to  ingratiate.  He  had  the  fatal 
gift  of  temperament — perhaps  barely  escaped 
genius.  He  was  able  to  do  wrong  so  skillfully 
that  one  feels  convinced  he  might  have  done 
right  with  equal  facility  if  he  had  chosen.  But 
he  did  not  choose.  He  repaid  affection  with 
ingratitude,  forgiveness  with  broken  pledges, 
parental  indulgence  with  a  life  of  dishonor. 

In  school  Eytinge  floundered  out  of  one 
111 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

scrape  only  to  fall  into  another,  till  at  fifteen 
or  sixteen  years  of  age,  adrift  for  some  scape- 
grace act,  and  being  as  usual  in  want  of  money, 
he  forged  a  check.  With  his  personal  graces 
it  was  ridiculously  easy  to  get  money  this  way. 
Forging  became  the  habit  of  his  teens. 

For  a  time  his  mother  and  his  relatives 
"squared"  the  cases  against  him  by  making 
good  the  losses  and  pleading  his  youth.  But 
he  was  never  permanently  out  of  trouble.  At 
nineteen  years  of  age  he  was  serving  time  in  a 
Federal  prison  for  a  forgery  committed  after 
a  naval  enlistment,  but  was  pardoned  for  the 
sake  of  his  youth  and  the  family  name.  At 
twenty  he  was  going  to  the  Mansfield  Reform- 
atory again  for  forgery ;  at  twenty- two  he  was 
arrested  for  forgeries  and  became  mixed  up 
in  an  attempted  jail  break  while  awaiting  trial; 
at  twenty-eight  he  was  coming  out  of  Colum- 
bus Penitentiary  with  a  five-year  term  behind 
him,  and  a  record  as  a  turbulent  prisoner  who 
had  been  spread-eagled,  paddled,  cuffed  to  the 
wall,  and  water  cured,  all  with  no  effect  that 
was  good  and  considerable  that  was  bad.  But 

112 


THE  CASE  OF  EYTINGE 

it  was  not  alone  his  character  that  was  worm- 
eaten.  The  man's  body  was  hopelessly  tuber- 
cular. In  fact,  Ey tinge  at  that  moment  was 
a  conspicuous  example  of  a  young  man  who 
had  deliberately  and  recklessly  wasted  his  en- 
tire life  capital  in  vicious  living,  and  whose 
final  reckoning  was  near. 

For  the  last  time  his  relatives  took  pity  on 
him.  Within  a  month  he  was  on  his  way  to 
Phoenix,  Ariz.,  with  a  promise  from  them  of 
$100  a  month  so  long  as  he  kept  away  and  out 
of  trouble.  Sixty  days  later,  hollow  of  cheek, 
wasted  of  body,  hunched  of  shoulder,  a  mere 
yellow  husk  of  a  man,  his  features  wearing 
a  habitual  smirk  of  animal  cunning,  he 
stood  shiftily  upon  enfeebled  legs  while  the 
law  of  a  life  for  a  life  was  invoked  against 
him. 

That,  in  brief  and  objectively  considered,  is 
the  transit  of  Louis  Victor  Ey  tinge  from  a  day 
in  1878  to  another  in  1907.  It  is  a  dismal  tale, 
and  better  untold  were  it  not  that  Eytinge  has 
turned  about  and,  rung  by  rung,  climbed  back 
up  the  ladder.  I  set  down  the  bare  details  of 

113 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

the  upward  steps.  They  shall  be  their  own 
interpreters. 

Eytinge  was  saved  by  money — that  is,  by  the 
need  of  money.  He  was  cured  by  looking 
upon  a  cross  of  gold.  Money  wants  had 
ruined  him.  They  now  began  to  redeem 
him. 

Yuma  Prison  was  one  of  the  worst  located 
in  America.  It  squatted  on  a  low  bluff  a  few 
feet  above  the  yellow,  writhing  waves  of  the 
wicked  Colorado.  The  summer  temperatures 
were  unbelievably  torrid.  The  cells  opened 
on  the  river.  Hordes  of  mosquitoes  came  in 
and  stung  the  occupants.  Eytinge  must  have 
mosquito  nets  or  endure  a  double  torture  in 
the  hackling  months  that  remained  to  him. 
His  relatives  had  cast  him  off  entirely.  By  a 
roundabout  appeal  they  were  induced  to  send 
him  $10,  but  that  was  all.  With  this  he  got 
netting  and  milk  and  eggs  for  a  few  days. 
But  he  was  a  very  sick  man;  he  weighed  less 
than  119  pounds;  primarily  his  stomach  re- 
jected all  food,  yet  by  eating  two  meals  in  suc- 
cession he  could  generally  retain  the  second; 

114 


THE  CASE  OF  EYTINGE 

but  the  food  itself  must  be  of  the  most  delicate, 
and  the  prison  diet  did  not  include  that  sort. 

But  the  instinct  for  life  was  strong  in  Louis 
Eytinge.  Though  his  days  must  be  spent  ill 
an  adobe  prison  in  one  of  the  most  impossible 
spots  in  America,  nevertheless  he  wanted  to 
live.  He  was  but  twenty-eight  years  old — too 
young — too  wicked  to  die.  But  without  fit 
food  no  life,  and  without  money  no  fit  food, 
and  how  to  get  the  money?  That  was  the 
question.  There  was  no  chance  to  forge  a 
check  in  prison.  But  there  were  ways  of  earn- 
ing money  in  prison. 

Eytinge  saw  prisoners  braiding  hatbands 
and  belts  of  horsehair  and  ornamenting  them 
crudely  with  silver  rosettes  hammered  from 
Mexican  dollars,  all  to  be  sold  through  the  bars 
to  chance  visitors  from  trains  that  were  some- 
times delayed  at  the  railroad  station.  That 
afforded  an  idea,  but  Eytinge  was  in  the 
chronic  ward,  with  no  chance  to  see  visitors  or 
to  sell ;  yet  necessity  was  laid  heavily  upon  him. 
From  the  advertising  pages  of  some  journal  he 
cut  the  names  of  two  Western  curio  dealers, 

115 


and  wrote  them  letters,  offering  to  furnish 
horsehair  souvenirs  to  be  sold  to  tourists.  The 
dealers  responded.  Eytinge  put  his  friends  to 
working,  making  hatbands  and  belts;  he 
learned  to  make  them  himself,  to  twist  the  hair, 
to  braid  it,  to  hammer  the  silver,  to  chase  and 
model  it — to  do  all  the  mechanical  work. 
Business  began  to  grow  and  money  to  be  made. 
There  were  nineteen  men  in  the  chronic  ward, 
and  Eytinge  kept  them  busy.  With  the  pro- 
ceeds the  men  bought  themselves  comforts. 
Eytinge  got  his  milk  and  eggs,  and,  instead  of 
dying  in  six  months,  was  alive  at  the  end  of  a 
year  and  gaining  in  weight. 

Then  a  sudden  blow  threatened  the  life  of 
the  infant  industry.  The  prison  authorities 
concluded  that  some  of  the  letter-writing  sales- 
men were  over-doing  the  matter  and  loading 
up  their  appeals  with  a  quantity  of  "sob  stuff" 
that  amounted  to  faking.  With  a  bang  the 
iron  hand  came  down.  This  all  but  wiped  Ey- 
tinge off  the  map.  He  staggered  for  a  bit, 
but,  instead  of  going  under,  reorganized  his 
business.  From  dealing  with  forty  retailers 

116 


THE  CASE  OF  EYTINGE 

per  week,  he  undertook  to  do  business  with  two 
wholesalers  in  each  seven  days. 

And  thereby  he  learned  the  value  of  a  let- 
ter. When  a  man  can  write  but  two  letters  a 
week,  those  letters  become  exceedingly  im- 
portant. They  must  hit  the  mark;  they  must 
be  aimed  true;  must  contain  no  wasted  words, 
and  none  that  are  worse  than  wasted,  as  some- 
times words  are.  More  than  that,  they  must 
be  letters  of  compelling  power.  It  may  be 
doubted  if  in  the  history  of  business  any  man 
ever  framed  selling  letters  under  such  com- 
pulsion as  Louis  Victor  Eytinge  in  those  days. 
It  was  life  or  death  for  him.  Behind  him  the 
little  group  of  nineteen  men  in  the  chronic 
ward,  weaving  their  horsehair  belts  and  hat- 
bands, hammering  their  trinkets  of  silver,  get- 
ting for  them  a  few  pesos  a  month,  to  spend  for 
small  comforts  or  to  send  home  to  families  who 
could  live  a  week  upon  a  dollar — before  him 
the  wide,  wide,  consuming  world  and  his  line 
of  communication,  two  white  wings  a  week. 
Small  wonder  that  Eytinge  weighed  the  value 
of  his  words,  that  he  studied  the  psychology  of 

117 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

selling,  that  he  sent  out  letters  that  for  pulling 
power  are  the  marvel  of  the  business  world. 
Moreover,  while  learning  how  to  write  a  selling 
letter  that  had  power  in  it,  Eytinge  made  the, 
to  him,  startling  discovery  that  truth  is  the 
fundamental  element  of  power  in  the  formula- 
tion of  the  selling  appeal :  that  a  letter  with  an 
obvious  misstatement  or  an  apparent  exagger- 
ation wounded  itself,  fluttered  into  the  waste- 
basket  and  died. 

He  had  to  write  the  simple  truth  about  his 
goods  in  order  to  sell  them,  and  discovered,  too, 
that  when  he  undertook  to  write  nothing  but 
the  truth  he  could  do  it  with  a  force  he  had 
never  felt  before. 

All  his  life  he  had  been  doing  crooked  things 
because  it  seemed  more  effective  to  fabricate 
a  lie  than  to  hew  out  the  truth.  Now  he  made 
this  striking  discovery  that  truth  was  power. 
Not  only  was  that  a  great  big  lesson  in  sales- 
manship, but  all  unconsciously  it  became  a 
great  big  lesson  in  character.  Louis  the 
Crooked  began  to  be  Louis  the  Straight,  for 
the  sake  of  power. 

118 


THE  CASE  OF  EYTINGE 

About  this  time  also  personal  influences  be- 
gan to  affect  No.  2608  favorably.  Arizona 
had  taken  thought  to  itself  and  moved  the 
prison  from  torrid  Yuma,  far  up  the  Gila 
Valley,  to  Florence — hot  enough,  the  ther- 
mometer tells  me  on  this  July  day,  when  it  is 
106  in  the  shade  as  I  write — but  not  unhealth- 
ful.  Here  Ey tinge,  weighing  190  pounds  and 
looking  the  picture  of  health,  heard  the  phys- 
ician pronounce  him  cured  of  tuberculosis. 

In  the  prison  at  this  time  was  a  parole  clerk 
with  a  great  enthusjasm  for  his  work.  He  had 
Eytinge  taken  from  the  chronic  ward  and 
assigned  to  duty  with  him.  He  called  Ey- 
tinge friend,  put  his  hand  upon  his  shoulder, 
made  him  partner  of  his  own  enthusiasm  for 
the  paroled  prisoners  who  were  trying  to  make 
good.  This  gave  Eytinge  a  new  zest  for  life, 
and  took  some  of  the  cynicism  out  of  him,  so 
that  it  began  to  seem  a  long  time  since  he  had 
regarded  an  honest  man  as  a  dub.  In  fact,  he 
began  to  have  respect  for  honesty. 

Along  in  February,  1912,  came  the  inaug- 
uration of  Arizona's  first  Statehood  Governor, 

119 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

George  W.  P.  Hunt,  and  with  it  a  complete 
change  in  prison  policy.  Governor  Hunt  was 
a  very  humane  man  with  advanced  ideas  on 
penology  and  scrupling  not  at  all  to  put  those 
ideas  instantly  into  effect.  For  his  prison 
warden  he  chose  Robert  B.  Sims,  who,  though 
having  no  previous  experience  with  criminals, 
was  a  clean  young  man  of  real  strength  of 
character,  honest  and  willing  to  learn.  He 
has  proved  a  valuable  executor  of  the  new  hu- 
manity represented  by  the  Governor. 

The  most  important  result  of  the  new  man- 
agement, so  far  as  Ey tinge  was  concerned,  was 
to  take  away  the  restrictions  upon  his  mail 
privileges.  It  is  the  theory  of  the  present  ad- 
ministration, and  its  parole  clerk,  J.  J.  San- 
ders, that  the  more  letters  a  prisoner  can  ex- 
change with  home  and  friends  and  the  right 
kind  of  people  generally  the  better  it  is  for 
him.  Such  interchanges  mean  contentment 
and  inspiration;  they  protect  men  from  brood- 
ing; they  give  cause  of  hope  from  day  to  day 
and  week  to  week  that  is  invaluable  in  char- 
acter building.  Yet  the  majority  of  prisons 

120 


THE  CASE  OF  EYTINGE 

in  America  restrict  a  convict  in  his  letter  writ- 
ing to  from  one  letter  a  week  down  to  one  in 
two  or  three  months,  while  to  some  classes  the 
privilege  is  altogether  denied. 

Through  unlimited  letters  Eytinge  was  now 
permitted  to  thrust  an  oar  into  the  stream  of 
outside  activities  and  to  feel  the  tug  of  normal 
life  currents.  For  some  time  he  had  been  sub- 
scribing for  the  business  magazines,  "Print- 
ers' Ink,"  "System,"  "Letters,"  and  the  like, 
and  was  studying  especially  the  science  of  ad- 
vertising. He  found  the  same  rules  holding 
good  there  as  in  the  writing  of  selling  letters. 
The  advertisement  of  power  was  the  advertise- 
ment of  honest  goods  honestly  represented. 

No  other  advertisement  would  pay  in  the 
long  run.  Of  course  Eytinge  was  not  the 
discoverer  of  this  idea,  except  for  himself. 
What  may  be  termed  the  evangelistic  move- 
ment in  advertising  had  been  on  for  some 
years. 

Eytinge  had  no  part  in  bringing  it  about. 
He  was  still  a  crook  when  the  theory  was  be- 
ing grasped  by  leaders  in  the  advertising  world. 

121 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

But  to  watch  that  new  tide  rise  gave  a  pleasur- 
able sensation,  like  the  sight  of  reenf orcements, 
and  strengthened  his  own  determination  to  be 
honest  for  the  sake  of  power. 

Through  correspondence  he  got  in  touch 
with  some  of  the  leaders  in  this  movement. 
The  convict's  letters  were  big  with  personality : 
they  were  full  of  amateurish  fervor,  but  packed 
with  well-ripened  thought  and  salted  with  a 
wide-ranging  faculty  for  friendship.  Their 
recipients  were  surprised  at  letters  emanating 
from  a  prison  which  struck  blows  in  behalf  of 
honesty.  Most  of  these  men  unhesitatingly 
hailed  Eytinge  as  a  fellow  spirit,  though  in 
prison.  They  gave  him  commissions  to  exe- 
cute; they  wrote,  offering  high-salaried  posi- 
tions the  moment  he  was  at  liberty,  and,  to 
hasten  that  moment,  they  wrote  the  Governor 
of  the  State,  urging  his  pardon. 

Public  recognition  of  the  value  of  his  writ- 
ings also  began  to  come.  His  articles  on  ad- 
vertising science  and  some  essays  on  character 
building  were  eagerly  seized  upon  and  printed 
in  technical  magazines.  His  writings  upon 

122 


THE  CASE  OF  EYTINGE 

penological  subjects  as  well  won  high  respect. 
Of  his  tract  on  the  indeterminate  sentence,  a 
sociologist  wrote: 

"I  have  found  no  keener  insight,  no  fuller 
structural  knowledge,  no  more  thorough  un- 
derstanding than  in  the  pamphlet  by  the  in- 
mate of  Arizona's  prison  at  Florence." 

Naturally  all  this  greatly  fed  the  prisoner's 
ambitions.  It  confirmed  his  intention  to  make 
his  life  snap  and  sparkle  with  the  power  that 
comes  of  basic  integrity;  and,  besides,  it  gave 
him  a  wonderful  sense  of  achievement.  They 
had  penned  him  up  to  die,  and  he  would  not 
die.  They  had  put  his  body  in  prison,  and  now 
his  mind  was  going  everywhere.  They  sent 
him  to  jail,  a  crook,  and  lo,  his  voice  was  a 
power  for  honesty.  He  had  himself  deliber- 
ately thrown  his  life  away,  and  now  he  was 
drawing  it  back  again  through  prison  bars  and 
a  slot  in  a  mail  box.  To  him  it  was  all  very 
wonderful  and  exciting.  It  was  impossible 
that  the  man's  throat  should  not  be  lumpy  at 
times  over  his  satisfaction.  He  was  beginning 
to  rise — to  conquer ! 

123 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

Still  the  soul  of  Eytinge  was  barely  halter 
broken.  He  had  discovered  rare  new  powers 
within  him,  but  they  were  like  dynamite:  they 
exploded  with  equal  force  in  all  directions. 
He  stood  greatly  in  need  of  friends  who  could 
be  gun  pointers  and  range  finders,  who  would 
hold  back  his  finger  from  the  trigger  till  the 
barrel  of  his  gun  was  drilled  put  with  the  ri- 
flings of  self-control.  And  this  sort  of  friend- 
ships were  coming  and  had  been  for  some  time. 
McCrary,  the  old  parole  clerk,  was  a  great  help 
to  him.  Sanders,  the  new  parole  clerk,  a  man 
of  seasoned  wisdom,  and  the  prisoner's  com- 
plete opposite  in  temperament,  holds  his  con- 
fidence and  has  helped  him  greatly  in  the  battle 
for  self-mastery.  But  two  friends  in  particu- 
lar from  the  outside  have  worked  with  him 
upon  the  drill  ground  of  his  soul,  greatly  to  the 
advantage  both  of  esprit  and  discipline. 

The  first  of  these  was  a  woman,  that  frail  hu- 
man dynamo,  Kate  Barnard  of  Oklahoma, 
who  has  fought  so  many  successful  battles  for 
the  underdogs  of  our  day.  She  came  to  Flor- 
ence for  a  few  weeks'  rest  as  the  house  guest  of 

124 


THE  CASE  OF  EYTINGE 

Warden  Sims,  and  while  there  did  much  to 
crack  the  shell  of  Eytinge,  broadening  and 
deepening  his  sympathies  and  chiseling  still 
more  of  the  cynicism  out  of  his  heart. 

And  then,  most  important  of  all,  came 
Thomas  Dreier,  editor  of  "Associated  Adver- 
tising" and  "Character,"  riding  into  the  life  of 
Eytinge  behind  the  flap  of  an  envelope. 
Young  man  as  he  is,  Dreier  is  a  sort  of  priest 
of  the  Melchizedekian  order  in  that  esoteric 
group  of  writers  of  advertising  philosophy  who 
try  to  put  soul  and  a  spiritual  ideal  into  the 
body  of  the  ink-and-paper  salesman. 

To-day,  when  Eytinge  sits  down  and  casts 
up  his  debts  to  the  world,  he  finds  himself 
owing  most  to  Dreier. 

"Dreier,"  he  says,  "made  me  look  up  to  the 
law  of  service — he  taught  me  to  give  the  best 
that  was  in  me  at  all  times,  and  it  would  bring 
the  best  from  others." 

Strange  words,  are  they  not,  to  fall  from  the 
lips  of  a  life  termer?  And  yet  they  do  not 
sound  like  cant.  Eytinge  spoke  them  soberly, 
reflectively,  almost  gropingly,  as  he  was  try- 

125 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

ing  to  explain  his  debt  to  Dreier.  Here  are 
some  more  which  I  quote  from  a  letter  of 
his: 

" I  believe  that  he  who  loves  must  climb,  not 
so  much  for  himself,  but  for  the  sake  of  those 
others  on  whose  bent  back  he  stood." 

Of  course  it  is  possible  for  cynical  persons 
still  to  question  the  genuineness  of  Mr.  Ey- 
tinge's  reform.  It  is  not,  however,  possible  to 
question  the  value  of  the  service  he  is  rendering 
to  society.  He  is  not  exactly  popular  in 
prison.  He  is  too  brilliant,  too  different  in  his 
clay  not  to  be  envied,  misunderstood,  and  some- 
times opposed,  and  too  impetuous  in  his  na- 
ture not  to  be  blamable  for  some  of  this  him- 
self. Yet  there  are  abundant  evidences  that 
he  has  been  of  great  service  to  his  fellow  pris- 
oners. He  taught  them  to  standardize  their 
output  of  curios  and  trinkets,  and  greatly  en- 
larged the  market  for  them. 

Since  the  pot  of  his  own  higher  aspirations 
began  to  simmer,  he  has  been  ready  to  help 
every  man  who  could  be  helped  by  the  sort  of 
appeal  Eytinge  knows  how  to  make.  He  has 

126 


THE  CASE  OF  EYTINGE 

been  a  leading  spirit  in  the  Prisoners'  Mutual 
Improvement  League. 

Eytinge  has  made  considerable  money  for  a 
prisoner  these  last  few  years,  perhaps  from  sev- 
eral hundred  to  a  thousand  dollars.  And  yet 
he  has  none. 

What  becomes  of  it?  Here  is  a  quotation 
from  a  letter  which  explains  in  part  at  least: 
"To  my  personal  knowledge  Eytinge's  money 
has  paid  for  milk  and  eggs  for  men  who  were 
too  sick  to  eat  prison  fare.  Eytinge's  money 
has  paid  for  sending  paroled  prisoners  home  to 
die.  He  has  given  many  men  going  out  of 
prison  money  to  start  life  on.  In  doing  for 
others  Eytinge  has  found  himself." 

Even  his  relatives,  who  have  suffered  so 
much  through  his  failures,  begin  to  have  faith 
and  to  write  him  words  of  encouragement  that 
are  priceless,  while  some  of  them  who  are  in 
business  go  so  far  as  to  give  him  commissions 
for  the  preparation  of  advertising. 

"Some  day  you  will  come  out,"  I  said  to 
Louis;  "you  will  get  the  chance  you  are 
earning.  Do  you  think  there  is  any  danger 

127 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

that  you  will  fall  back  into  the  old  ways?" 
With  folded  arms  he  was  leaning  forward 
upon  his  desk.     For  a  moment  his  shoulders 
were  bowed  in  deep  thought. 

"No,"  he  said  at  length,  deliberately  and 
gravely,  like  a  man  who  sensed  the  full  pleas- 
ure of  possible  temptations.  "It  backs  down 
fundamentally  to  the  old  question  of  money 
wants.  I  shall  want  money  as  badly  as  ever, 
but  I  know  a  better  way  to  get  money  than 
by  forging  a  lie;  and  there  is  more  pleasure 
and  exhilaration  of  achievement  in  the  new 
way.  Besides,  I  have  found  there  is  more  in 
life  than  money.  I  have  tapped  new  sources 
of  satisfaction  in  life  which  titillate  nerves  I 
did  not  know  I  had.  No — "  and  his  strange 
eyes  lighted  with  the  look  of  a  man  who  sees  a 
vision — "no,  after  seeing  what  I  have  learned 
to  see  in  life,  I  do — not — think — I — ever 
could.3'  That  is  Eytinge's  carefully  consid- 
ered judgment  upon  the  state  of  his  own  being. 
I  believe  it  is  entitled  to  consideration. 

If  Ey tinge's  judgment  is  correct,  it  is  vastly 
more  than  individually  important,  for  it  is  one 

128 


THE  CASE  OF  EYTINGE 

more  proof  that  America  is  finding  a  better 
way  with  her  criminals.  Last  year  there  were 
103,000  penal  commitments  in  these  States  of 
ours.  Eytinge  is  a  type  of  many  of  them. 
He  was  American  bred  and  born  and  schooled ; 
he  was  ruined  by  the  commonest  American  sin, 
extravagance.  Yet  the  country  concerned  it- 
self little  enough  about  him  till  he  became  so- 
cially unendurable.  Then  it  sequestered  him 
and  concerned  itself  less.  It  entombed  him, 
banned  him,  forgot  him. 

But  a  new  spirit  comes  stealing  into  our 
prison  management  and  a  new  attitude  into 
the  public  mind,  and  both  overlook  this 
sealed-up  soul.  In  few  prisons  outside  of 
America,  and  indeed  in  but  few  here,  and  in 
those  but  recently,  could  a  life  termer  have  en- 
joyed the  privileges  which  are  redeeming  Ey- 
tinge. And  where  but  in  America  would  busi- 
ness and  professional  men  have  responded  to 
uninvited  letters  from  an  unknown  lifer  with 
that  ready  sympathy  and  frank  brotherliness 
which  have  reacted  so  remarkably  upon  the 
character  of  the  man? 

129 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  whole  setting  of  the 
drama  is  typically  and  modernly  American. 
Arizona,  with  her  twin,  is  the  newest  of  our 
States.  Her  benignant  Governor,  thirty  years 
ago  a  waiter  in  a  restaurant  in  a  mining  camp, 
a  storekeeper  almost  to  the  day  of  his  inaugu- 
ration, is  essentially  a  type  of  our  times  and 
country.  The  prisoner  himself,  rolled  in  the 
dust,  scarred,  stung,  but  unbeaten,  making  his 
prison  bars  rattle  with  defiance  to  the  fates, 
and  sitting  down  to  write:  "How  far  I'll 
climb  is  not  for  me  to  say — but — if  aim  and  in- 
tent count  for  anything — and  confidence,  too 
— then  I'll  not  limit  myself,"  breathes  the 
dauntless  American  spirit. 

Nor  is  he  just  one  man  alone.  Rather  he  is 
one  of  a  class,  and  with  this  class  America  be- 
gins to  find  a  better  way. 


130 


THE   RETURN   OF   "LUCKY   BALDWIN" 

LUCKY  was  no  relation  to  the  late  California 
horseman.  Baldwin  was  not  his  name.  It 
was  only  his  "moniker."  The  man  was  a  vi- 
cious Bowery  thug — was!  Yet  his  physiog- 
nomy is  most  attractive.  It  advertises  frank 
courage  and  broad  good  humor.  There  is 
something  in  its  honest  strength  which  makes 
us  feel  like  trusting  that  man.  Still  by  study- 
ing his  countenance  one  may  pick  out  the  in- 
cidents of  a  very  remarkable  criminal  career. 

If,  for  instance,  those  full  lips  should  smile, 
they  would  disclose  no  natural  teeth  at  all,  but 
only  an  imitation  in  gleaming  ridges  of  gold. 
That  is  because,  while  two  deputies  held  him 
helpless,  an  Alabama  sheriff  vengefully  beat 
in  all  his  front  teeth,  after  which  he  kicked  the 
insensible  body  till  he  was  tired  and  ordered  it 
flung  into  a  bull-pen  till  the  man  should  die; 

131 


and  this  because  Lucky  had  previously  worsted 
that  Sheriff  in  single  combat. 

Again  turning  to  his  physiognomy  we  can- 
not fail  to  observe  a  great  slashing  scar  across 
the  eyes.  That  came  one  day  when  four 
"harness  bulls"  were  bent  on  taking  Lucky  to 
jail.  He  went,  but  unconscious  of  his  going. 
If  you  were  to  look  at  the  back  of  the  man's 
head  instead  of  the  front,  a  spot  like  a  bull's- 
eye,  as  large  and  as  bald  as  a  golf  ball,  would 
stare  us  uncannily  out  of  countenance.  In 
some  melee  or  other,  in  some  place  or  other 
from  New  York  to  San  Francisco,  at  some- 
time or  other  between  the  years  of  seventeen 
and  thirty-seven,  this  occipital  knob  was  de- 
nuded of  hair,  follicle  and  root,  chipped  to  the 
very  bone,  and  Lucky  by  no  means  pretends 
to  remember  where  or  when  or  from  whom  he 
received  that  tonsure-like  brand. 

If,  now,  we  had  a  skiagraph,  one  of  those 
shadow-pictures  produced  by  the  Roentgen 
rays,  we  might  discern  that  some  of  Lucky's 
ribs  are  thickened  and  gnarled  like  the  ex- 
posed roots  of  a  weather-twisted  tree.  Many 

132 


RETURN  OF  "LUCKY  BALDWIN" 

men,  beside  the  Alabama  sheriff,  it  would 
seem,  have  taken  a  kick  at  the  ribs  of 
Lucky. 

And  yet  no  amount  of  scrutiny  of  Lucky 
would  disclose  to  us  the  next  startling  fact, 
which  is  that  four  years  ago  at  thirty-seven 
years  of  age,  this  bright-looking  man,  born  of 
an  Irish  mother  and  an  English  father  on  Man- 
hattan Island,  and  growing  up  and  gathering 
the  most  of  his  living  there,  was  unable  to  read 
or  write,  nor  could  he  utter  a  grammatically 
correct  English  sentence  of  ten  words.  In- 
deed, forty-eight  months  ago  he  was  only  a 
kind  of  animal,  depraved  in  disposition  and 
treacherous  in  temper.  His  speech  was  a 
thieves'  patois  with  only  an  occasional  unpol- 
luted word  and  the  main  stream  of  conversa- 
tion was  hurried  forward  on  a  flooding  tide  of 
profanity.  Indeed,  when  first  he  stripped  his 
sentences  of  the  profane,  no  sentences  re- 
mained. He  was  suddenly  phraseless.  He 
had  no  adjectives,  no  language  of  emotion,  of 
admiration,  of  astonishment,  of  disapproval  or 
disgust — he  simply  could  not  express  himself. 

133 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

To-day  this  man  is  the  very  salt  and  savor  of 
likeable  human  qualities;  yet  for  twenty-five 
years  Lucky  Baldwin  led  a  criminal  life.  If 
there  is  a  crime  in  the  calendar  which  he  did  not 
commit  during  that  quarter  of  a  century  of  life 
in  the  underworld,  he  does  not  know  what  it 
was.  Yet  he  never  served  a  prison  sentence. 
That  was  why  he  was  y-clept  "Lucky."  City 
and  county  jails,  road-gangs  and  rock-piles 
and  bull-pens  held  him  occasionally,  but  he 
never  wore  a  stripe. 

And  no  one  need  blame  society  for  those 
twenty-five  criminal  years.  Lucky  doesn't. 
And  no  one  need  indict  environment.  Lucky 
doesn't.  The  environment,  to  be  sure,  was  not 
extra  nice.  On  the  contrary  it  was  extra  bad. 
But  Lucky  had  brothers  and  sisters.  They 
passed  up  through  that  same  environment  to 
honest,  sober  living.  Lucky  knows  he  might 
have  done  the  same.  There  is  in  his  story  no 
whimpering  attempt  at  palliation.  He  delib- 
erately went  bad.  And  then  he  turned  about 
and  deliberately — but  that  is  the  story! 

Lucky's  birth-name  was  Balf,  Christian  J. 
134 


Balf ;  and  the  place  of  his  nativity  was  Cherry 
Hill,  which  is  under  the  Manhattan  end  of 
Brooklyn  bridge.  To-day  the  Hill  is  squalid 
Italian;  forty  years  ago  it  was  righting  Irish. 
A  gang  of  young  truck  thieves  "hung  out"  in 
the  block  in  which  Lucky  lived.  They  would 
steal  a  bag  of  coffee  or  a  tub  of  butter  from  a 
passing  truck,  trundle  it  into  an  alley  and  from 
there  whisk  it  away  to  a  "fence."  "A  'fence/  ' 
says  Lucky,  to-day,  falling  back  upon  his 
Bowery  gutturals,  with  welts  of  horror  contort- 
ing his  face,  "a  'fence'  is  de  woist  ting  in  de 
woild." 

The  little  Irish  lad  made  these  young  crim- 
inals the  heroes  of  his  dreams.  At  eleven  years 
of  age  came  his  first  chance  to  emulate  them. 
He  saw  a  driver  unload  twenty-five  small  kegs 
of  beer  in  front  of  a  saloon.  The  bar-keeper 
came  out  and  counted  the  kegs  and  returned  to 
the  saloon,  after  which  the  driver  began  to  roll 
them  in  one  by  one.  For  an  interval  with  each 
he  was  out  of  sight  behind  the  swinging  doors. 
This  interval  was  the  opportunity  of  the  little, 
red-headed,  freckle-faced  Chris.  In  one  of 

135 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

those  fractions  of  a  minute,  he  sent  a  keg  spin- 
ning into  the  narrow  alley  which  had  so  often 
served  as  a  thieves  run-way.  The  driver,  hav- 
ing counted  the  beer  once,  never  missed  this 
keg,  and  before  he  had  mounted  his  wagon 
Chris  had  hammered  in  the  bung,  and  with  his 
friends  around  him  had  entered  upon  his  first 
debauch,  drinking  himself  sodden  drunk.  His 
father,  a  hard-working  stationary  engineer, 
performed  his  duty  sternly.  Chris  resented 
the  beating  he  received  and  it  was  three  months 
before  the  home-folks  saw  him  again.  Then 
he  swaggered  down  the  street  of  his  birth  and 
exhibited  himself  to  his  brothers  and  sisters. 
His  twelve-year-old  bosom  was  swollen  with 
pride  and  conceit.  He  could  smoke,  he  could 
drink,  he  could  lie,  he  could  steal,  and  upon 
these  resources  he  could  sustain  life.  He  was 
a  man! 

From  that  first  boyish  theft  and  intoxication, 
Lucky  Baldwin  sorrowfully  dates  his  criminal 
career.  At  fifteen  he  was  an  expert  thief  and 
belonged  to  a  gang  which  was  affiliated  with  a 
"fence."  The  desperate  nature  of  these  as- 

136 


RETURN  OF  "LUCKY  BALDWIN" 

sociates  is  summed  up  now  when  he  says  of 
them  sadly,  "Some  of  'em  is  dead;  some  of  'em 
is  in  prison,  and  some  of  'em  is  hung." 

At  seventeen,  big  and  strong,  some  impulse 
sent  the  young  tough  to  work  as  a  truck-driver. 
But  he  confesses :  "I  was  bounced  as  often  as 
I  was  hired.  To  save  my  life  I  could  not  stop 
stealing.  I  would  open  up  cases,  take  out 
what  I  fancied,  and  put  it  in  my  feed-boxes." 

From  truck-driving,  he  graduated  to  a  posi- 
tion in  a  Bowery  restaurant,  famous  as  "Sui- 
cide Hall."  Here  he  became  proficient  in  the 
art  of  short-changing.  He  could  serve  a  pat- 
ron with  sedulous  concern,  encourage  him  to 
talk,  gain  his  confidence,  and  then,  in  the  mo- 
ment of  giving  him  his  change,  rob  him. 
From  a  five  dollar  bill  he  could  get  one  dollar 
and  fifty  cents ;  from  a  ten  dollar  bill,  four  dol- 
lars, and  from  a  twenty,  six  dollars  and  fifty 
cents.  It  was  in  part  legerdemain,  and  in  part 
a  confidence  game;  and  Lucky  played  both 
with  equal  skill.  Fifty  or  sixty  dollars  a  week 
was  the  "take-out,"  but  this  soon  became  too 
slow  for  Lucky's  impatient  appetites.  He  re- 

137 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

sorted  to  methods  requiring  less  finesse  and 
producing  larger  returns,  but  one  of  these  ven- 
tures came  near  to  whelming  him  in  disaster. 

He  was  arrested  on  a  charge  of  "horse-steal- 
ing and  highway,"  as  he  puts  it.  The  case 
against  him  was  perfect.  But  Lucky  was 
young.  His  face  was  engaging.  Crime  at 
that  time  had  put  no  stamp  upon  it.  His  peo- 
ple stood  well  in  the  neighborhood  and  despite 
his  wildness,  were  devoted  to  him.  His  sister 
came  into  court  with  a  certified  check  for  the 
amount  of  money  involved.  She  made  a  dra- 
matic plea  upon  her  knees  for  the  liberty  of  her 
brother;  so  the  jury,  ignoring  the  evidence  and 
all  law  but  the  universal  one  of  mercy,  decided 
to  give  the  boy  another  chance.  It  was  this 
acquittal  and  other  "narrow  squeaks"  like  it, 
that  earned  the  sobriquet  of  "Lucky  Baldwin" 
for  Christian  J.  Balf. 

But  Lucky  disappointed  his  faithful  sister. 
He  misused  that  jury's  well-meant  mercy,  and 
soon  was  "hanging  out"  on  the  Bowery  again. 
The  curve  of  his  criminal  bent  developed  rap- 
idly now.  His  offenses  became  more 

138 


RETURN  OF  "LUCKY  BALDWIN" 

grave.  He  degenerated  into  a  sort  of  human 
beast  of  prey.  For  fifteen  years  he  was  a 
leader  of  the  tough  gang  that  centered  about 
the  Bowery  and  Houston  Streets.  His  life 
during  all  this  time  was  unpurposed  and  unor- 
ganized, a  mere  succession  of  physiological  re- 
actions. He  lived  from  impulse  to  impulse. 
His  wants  begot  his  impulses  and  his  impulses 
begot  his  crimes.  He  was  a  mixture  of  cun- 
ning, courage  and  prowess.  Officers  seldom 
got  a  hand  upon  him ;  when  they  did  he  fought 
and  usually  worsted  them;  and  even  when  they 
conquered  they  never  could  convict  him. 

Drink  played  a  greater  and  greater  part  in 
his  life.  His  first  theft  at  eleven  years  of  age 
of  the  keg  of  beer  seemed  to  have  baptized  his 
whole  career  in  the  fumes  of  alcohol. 

Occasionally  the  necessity  of  lying  low  in 
New  York,  or  some  vagrant  wanderlust  caused 
him  to  roam  out  over  the  country,  and  where- 
ever  he  went  he  contrived  to  get  himself  em- 
broiled and  to  do  things  that  made  men  put  a 
price  upon  his  head.  He  even  became  a  strike- 
breaker. Probably  there  is  nothing  in  Lucky's 

139 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

past  of  which  he  is  more  ashamed  than  this. 
But  the  dash  of  adventure,  the  large  pay  and 
little  work,  with  the  promise  of  a  head-cracking 
fight  every  day,  appealed  to  him  as  it  does  to 
hundreds  of  his  kind. 

Upon  one  strike-breaking  occasion  Lucky 
started  for  San  Francisco  as  one  of  Farley's 
lieutenants,  but  he  arrived  there  in  chains, 
guarded  by  sixteen  deputies  armed  with  Win- 
chesters, who  gave  out  that  he  was  one  of  the 
most  desperate  criminals  ever  brought  into 
that  city.  Just  what  Lucky  had  attempted  en 
route  ought  not  to  be  set  down  very  broadly 
here,  but  it  was  one  of  the  most  desperate  enter- 
prises of  his  life.  As  usual,  however,  his  lucky 
star  was  twinkling  brightly  and  he  went  free. 

After  a  time  he  drifted  back  to  the  Bowery 
and  to  his  old  tricks.  But  the  years  were  pass- 
ing. Twenty-five  years  is  a  long  time  in  the 
criminal  world.  Lucky's  enterprises  began  to 
miss  fire.  His  "work"  grew  coarser.  His 
cunning  limped.  He  fought  as  bravely  as  of 
yore,  but  he  was  beaten  oftener.  He  grew 
crabbed  and  morose.  His  pals,  the  policemen 

140 


RETURN  OF  "LUCKY  BALDWIN" 

on  the  beats,  the  very  women  on  the  street  be- 
gan to  whisper  that  old  Father  Time  was  get- 
ting the  "hook"  for  Lucky.  Father  Time  at 
thirty-seven!  It  was  not  Father  Time.  It 
was  Uncle  John  Barleycorn. 

One  night  Lucky  "stuck  a  man  up"  and  took 
thirty-five  dollars  from  him.  It  was  his  last 
trick.  In  forty-eight  hours  he  was  broke 
again.  The  pangs  of  a  terrible  thirst  were 
gnawing  him.  He  did  not  walk  but  prowled 
along  the  Bowery  like  an  emaciated  cat  on  an 
alley  fence.  He  was  sore  in  his  heart.  His 
professional  pride  was  hurt.  It  was  Thanks- 
giving Day,  1908,  but  Lucky  saw  no  particular 
reason  for  thanksgiving.  He  had  a  feeling 
that  this  was  an  ungrateful  world. 

But  presently  he  spied  a  "prospect."  This 
perked  him  up.  However,  he  abandoned  all 
finesse  in  his  approach.  Lucky  wanted  a  drink 
very  badly.  The  man  stood  with  his  hands  in 
his  pockets. 

"I  thought  he  might  have  his  mit  on  his  wad, 
you  see,"  he  explains,  "so  I  grabs  his  elbow 
and  jerks  his  fist  out  of  his  pocket." 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

A  shower  of  small  coins  clinked  upon  the 
pavement;  but  a  "harness  bull"  who  had 
evidently  been  trailing  Lucky  dashed  up. 
At  his  appearance  the  victim  took  to  his  heels. 
He  had  some  reason  for  not  wishing  to  meet 
the  police.  As  for  Lucky,  he  ducked  the 
wrong  way  and  was  caught.  But  he  made  no 
resistance.  His  fighting  spirit  was  gone. 
However,  instead  of  making  an  arrest,  the 
officer  delivered  two  stinging  blows  of  his  club 
upon  Lucky's  back  and  said: 

"Now,  Lucky,  you  keep  off  my  beat.  I 
know  what  you  done  the  other  night,  and  the 
next  time  I  find  you  on  my  walk,  I'm  going 
to  give  you  the  collar.  You  ain't  a  thief  any 
more,  you're  only  a  dirty  bum.  Now  beat  it." 
With  this  he  gave  Lucky  a  final  clip  with 
the  club  that  jarred  every  bone  in  his  body. 

It  was  a  very  dejected,  unluck- appearing 
Lucky,  who  slunk  on  down  the  street,  rubbing 
his  sore  spots  as  he  went,  while  a  flood  of  mis- 
givings welled  up  into  his  mind.  He  was 
penniless.  His  strength,  and  for  the  time 
being,  his  nerve,  were  gone.  He  stood,  shud- 

142 


RETURN  OF  "LUCKY  BALDWIN" 

dering,  shivering,  helpless.  The  policeman 
was  right.  He  was  a  bum.  He  could  no 
longer  hold  up  his  head  like  a  self-respecting 
thief.  Up  to  that  hour  he  had  never  doubted 
himself.  Now  he  admitted  something  was 
queer.  He  had  played  the  game  wrong  some- 
where, but  for  the  life  of  him  could  not  see 
where  nor  how.  He  tried  to  think,  to  devise 
a  new  "game,"  but  could  not.  His  mind,  as 
usual,  was  muddled  by  alcohol. 

And  yet,  if  Lucky  had  been  gifted  with 
clairvoyance,  he  would  have  known  that  the 
biggest  trick  he  had  ever  pulled  off  in  all  his 
life  was  coming  right  up  the  Bowery  to  meet 
him;  but  he  had  no  such  gift  and  he  did  not 
divine  what  was  impending.  He  only  stopped 
rubbing  the  sore  spot  on  his  back  with  his 
right  hand,  and  began  to  curry  it  gently  with 
his  left.  It  got  easier  and  he  leaned  against 
a  lamp-post;  but  the  cop  must  have  cracked 
him  on  the  shoulder  blade  also,  for  he  flinched 
at  the  weight  of  his  body  on  the  iron  and 
straightened  up  quickly.  Perhaps  this  was 
as  well,  for  it  put  him  on  the  alert. 

143 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

And  his  fate  was  really  coming  up  the 
street,  coming  in  the  guise  of  a  man  who 
offered  Lucky  a  ticket  to  the  Jerry  McAuley 
Mission  on  Water  Street.  Lucky  accepted 
the  ticket  as  in  his  state  he  would  have  ac- 
cepted a  bone  offered  him  by  a  dog,  but  all 
the  while  considered  kicking  the  man  on  the 
shins  and  going  through  him  to  see  what  be- 
sides rescue  mission  tickets  might  be  in  his 
pockets.  But  in  the  meantime  he  heard  with 
amazement  that  by  presenting  the  ticket,  he 
could  get  a  cup  of  coffee  and  a  sandwich. 
He  abandoned  his  shin-kicking  project  and 
mano3vered  immediately  but  circuitously  after 
the  thief's  habit  in  the  direction  of  the  mission, 
entered  and  furtively  claimed  his  boon.  Two 
bites  of  the  sandwich  were  enough,  but  he 
gulped  the  coffee.  He  heard  a  Gospel  meet- 
ing announced  for  the  night,  and  came  back, 
perhaps  hoping  for  more  coffee. 

He  sat  through  a  large  part  of  this  meeting 
in  a  kind  of  bestial  slumber,  but  with  oc- 
casional lucid  intervals  when  he  stared  about 
stupidly,  heard  the  testimonies  that  men 

144 


RETURN  OF  "LUCKY  BALDWIN" 

around  him  were  giving,  and  got  some  glim- 
mering idea  of  the  picture  of  a  clean  life  that 
was  being  painted. 

To  be  prepared  for  what  follows,  it  must  be 
borne  in  mind  that  Alias  Lucky  Baldwin  was 
a  man  of  decision  of  character,  and  all  his  life 
had  been.  Within  thirteen  seconds  after  he 
decided  to  do  a  thing  that  thing  was  usually 
either  done  or  doing.  Action  followed  swiftly 
upon  the  heels  of  resolution,  whether  the 
thing  resolved  was  the  stealing  of  a  keg  of  beer 
or  the  slugging  of  a  policeman.  Now,  as  he 
listened  in  his  maudlin  way,  some  sense  of  what 
was  happening  and  what  it  all  meant  got 
through  Lucky's  ridged  and  knotted  skull.  He 
weighed  it  all  swiftly  against  his  own  "game" 
and  concluded  that  the  new  scheme  was  better. 
The  leader  of  the  meeting  was  deaf,  and  was 
wearing  a  thing  like  a  telephone  receiver 
upon  his  head. 

"Tell  dat  guy  to  telephone  to  Gowd  dat 
I'm  a  comin',"  Lucky  called  out,  as  he  rose  and 
went  lurching  up  the  aisle.  He  sank  on  his 
knees  with  a  row  of  supplicants,  and  was  soon 

145 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

asleep,  so  that  when  Mr.  Wyburn,  the  super- 
intendent of  the  mission,  who  himself  had  been 
reclaimed  from  drunkenness  upon  that  floor, 
came  to  him,  he  had  to  be  wakened.  As 
Mr.  Wyburn,  kneeling  before  the  poor 
wretch,  told  the  story  of  the  sufferings  of 
the  One  who  went  to  the  Cross,  and  that  it 
was  all  for  him,  Lucky  felt  himself  strangely 
moved.  A  great  lump  came  into  his  throat. 
He  swallowed  at  it  in  vain.  Something 
scalding  hot  was  washing  down  his  cheeks  and 
splashing  on  the  stained  bottom  of  the  chair. 
Lucky  gazed  at  these  drops  in  surprise  for  a 
moment  without  recognizing  them.  They 
were  tears,  his  tears,  the  first  he  had  shed 
since  boyhood. 

"Now  pray  the  publican's  prayer,  brother," 
advised  Mr.  Wyburn,  gently. 

To  his  surprise  the  drunkard  rose  up  hotly, 
his  face  like  a  red  and  angry  sun.  "I  ain't 
no  Republican,"  he  declared  with  a  look  of 
loathing;  then  added,  proudly,  "I'm  a  Demo- 
crat." 

This  revealed  two  things,  the  man's  de- 
146 


RETURN  OF  "LUCKY  BALDWIN" 

plorable  ignorance  and  his  admirable  loyalty. 
Lucky  was  an  adherent  of  the  Tammany  or- 
ganization. Here  was  a  subject  upon  which  he 
had  convictions.  He  would  not  have  prayed  a 
Republican  prayer  to  get  himself  out  of  the 
lowest  hell. 

Yet  Lucky  did  pray  that  night,  and  then 
got  up  and  rocked  out  into  the  street.  The 
missioners  had  given  him  a  bed  ticket  but  he 
was  afraid  to  go  to  bed.  He  walked  the 
streets  all  night  and  his  feelings  were  the 
strangest  that  had  ever  come  to  him.  He 
thought  of  his  wasted  life,  caught  a  vision  of 
its  awfulness  and  terrible  remorses  over- 
whelmed him  while  he  dreamed  at  times  of 
getting  some  honest  work  to  do  among  Chris- 
tian people.  The  idea  of  turning  back  after 
his  new  resolutions  there  in  the  mission,  never 
once  occurred  to  him.  Lucky  was  not  a  quit- 
ter. He  had  played  one  string  out  to  the  end. 
Now  he  was  entering  upon  another.  He  tried 
to  think  out  a  new  future  for  himself  but  had 
great  difficulty  in  thinking  at  all.  At  the 
least  excitement,  his  brain  became  obscured  by 

147 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

an  alcoholic  cloud.  His  tissues  were  so  sod- 
den with  spirits  that,  as  he  says,  "If  I  just 
took  a  drink  of  seltzer  and  jumped  around  a 
bit  I  was  jagged." 

The  next  night  Lucky  was  back  at  the  mis- 
sion in  a  condition  that  inspired  hope.  For  a 
week  faith  and  loyalty  grew.  And  then  an 
incident  put  both  to  the  test.  On  the  Bowery 
he  came  face  to  face  with  Jim  Hall,  a  well- 
known  gang-leader  and  an  old  time  rival. 
Hall  was  quick  to  note  a  change  in  Lucky's 
appearance. 

"What's  de  matter  wit  you,  Lucky?"  he  de- 
manded with  an  oath. 

"I  am  a  Christian,  now,"  replied  Lucky, 
martialling  his  features  into  a  smile. 

"A    what?    A    Christer?"    sneered    Hall. 

This  tone  angered  Lucky,  whose  unchained 
temper  was  to  trouble  him  for  months  to  come, 
but  here  was  a  chance  to  tell  the  story  and 
prove  his  loyalty  to  that  strange  new  some- 
thing which  had  come  into  his  life.  Hall  was 
a  hard  subject,  but  not  more  hopeless  than 
Lucky  himself  had  been,  so  the  queer  neophyte 

148 


RETURN  OF  "LUCKY  BALDWIN" 

faced  his  opportunity  bravely,  opening  with: 
"It's  real,  Jim;  it's  real."  And  again  he 
maneuvered  that  lugubrious,  swollen-lipped 
smile. 

"It's  a  fake  and  you  and  all  of  'em  is  fa- 
kers," affirmed  Hall,  supporting  his  statement 
with  oaths  which  may  not  even  be  indicated 
here  by  dashes. 

Words  suddenly  failed  Lucky.  He  had  in- 
stant recourse  to  the  only  arguments  in 
which  he  placed  entire  dependence.  "It's  the 
Gawd's  truth,"  he  roared,  shooting  in  a  short 
arm  jab  to  the  ribs  that  made  Jim  grunt. 

"It's  a  lie,  I  tell  you,  an'  you're  a  liar," 
hissed  Jim,  between  clenched  teeth,  as  he 
struck  back. 

In  a  fraction  of  time  the  two  men  were  roll- 
ing in  the  gutter,  clawing,  striking  and  kick- 
ing. Lucky,  as  he  could  get  breath,  continued 
to  blurt  out  fragments  of  his  experience,  and 
to  expound  the  principles  of  the  Gospel  of  sal- 
vation as  he  had  grasped  it.  Never  was  the 
story  of  the  Cross  told  more  earnestly,  and 
probably  never  under  stranger  conditions. 

149 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

"Will  you  believe?"  gasped  Lucky,  after  a 
time,  as  he  held  Jim's  head  in  chancery. 

"No,"  groaned  Jim,  gritting  his  teeth,  "and 
no  coffee  and  sandwich  pew-warmer  like  you 
can  make  me  believe,  either." 

"Will  you?"  Lucky  questioned,  at  another 
stage  of  his  discourse,  while  he  squeezed  Jim's 
throat  till  his  face  was  purple. 

"No,"  wheezed  Jim,  as  he  broke  the 
hold  upon  his  throat,  "No,  blame  you,  I 
won't" 

But  Jim  was  growing  weaker.  Lucky  re- 
doubled his  efforts.  "Now,  will  you?"  he  de- 
manded as  he  slipped  over  a  most  eloquent 
punch  to  the  point  of  Jim's  jaw.  "Will  you 
believe?"  And  again  Jim's  head  rocked 
against  the  curb. 

"Yes,"  Jim  gulped,  sullenly,  "I  believe." 

And  this  was  Lucky's  first  convert.  He 
does  not  know  whether  Jim  "stuck,"  or  not. 
He  told  me  in  Chicago  with  a  dry  smile,  that 
he  feared  not.  "Gee,  but  my  work  was  raw," 
he  murmured,  regretfully,  blaming  himself, 
and  then  added  cheerfully,  "But,  I  was  doin' 

150 


RETURN  OF  "LUCKY  BALDWIN" 

the  best  I  knew.  No  guy  could  beat  me  to  it 
on  tellin'  the  story." 

No  one  should  accuse  this  man  of  sacrilege. 
Instead  he  should  have  credit  for  zeal  and  loy- 
alty. He  was  only  six  days  from  being  a 
criminal  GBowery  bum.  A  few  days  later 
when  he  first  stood  up  in  the  Mission  to  give 
an  extended  testimony,  and  turned  to  exhort 
the  fringe  of  human  wrecks  about  him,  a 
stream  of  profanity  gushed  from  his  lips. 
The  good  mission-folk  knew  that  this  was  un- 
intentional on  Lucky's  part.  He  was  so  ig- 
norant that  he  did  not  know  it  was  profanity. 
To  him  it  was  only  the  language  of  strong 
emotion. 

Mr.  T.  S.  Clay,  a  Wall  Street  merchant, 
who  spends  much  of  his  spare  time  at  the  mis- 
sion, was  attracted  to  the  man  and  saw  that  he 
needed  friending.  He  made  himself  own 
brother  to  the  outcast.  For  days  on  end  he 
had  him  take  both  luncheon  and  dinner  with 
him.  Lucky  was  like  some  jungle-man,  vora- 
cious and  unmannered.  Despite  his  service 
as  a  waiter,  now  some  twenty  years  behind 

151 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

him,  Mr.  Clay  had  to  teach  Lucky  again  the 
use  of  napkins,  and  the  proper  limitations 
upon  knives,  forks  and  fingers.  He  found 
Lucky  "with  the  worst  temper  a  man  ever 
had."  By  turns  he  was  humble  and  contrite, 
conceited  and  arrogant.  When  the  man  was 
far  enough  along  to  go  to  work,  Mr.  Clay 
gave  him  "a  new  front,  new  lid  and  new 
kicks." 

Great  was  Lucky's  disgust  to  find  he  had 
"a  woman  for  a  boss"  in  the  garment  factory 
where  he  found  his  first  job.  At  the  only 
order  she  ever  gave  him,  he  looked  her  over  in 
angry  scorn  and  exploded:  "Say,  Slim! 
Beat  it,  or  I'll  drop  you  out  de  window  like  a 
spool  o'  t'read."  The  fore-lady  fled  in  terror, 
and  from  a  safe  distance  "fired"  Lucky  high 
and  wide. 

When  his  rage  had  subsided,  the  jungle- 
man  blamed  his  temper  sorely,  and  in  deep 
contrition  suffered  the  two  weeks'  idleness 
which  intervened  before  he  found  his  next  em- 
ployment, which  was  as  a  helper  in  Bellevue 
Hospital.  There  he  toiled  indomitable  and 

152 


RETURN  OF  "LUCKY  BALDWIN" 

had  a  fine  time  fighting  his  temper  and  culti- 
vating a  spirit  of  cheery  patience.  When  he 
got  his  pay  envelope,  the  first  honest  whole 
week's  wages  he  had  ever  earned  in  his  life, 
he  hurried  to  the  mission  with  it,  afraid  to 
break  the  seal,  and  turned  it  over  to  his  friends, 
bursting  with  pride. 

But  whenever  opportunity  offered  among 
the  thirteen  hundred  patients  as  well  as  among 
the  employes,  Lucky  "told  the  story,"  and  it 
was  impossible  that  between  his  zeal  and  his 
temper  he  should  escape  trouble. 

"Young  man,  you  seem  to  be  very  reli- 
gious," observed  a  man  named  O'Neil,  one 
day,  as  a  group  of  the  hospital  employes  sat 
about  their  mess  table.  There  was  rebuke  in 
the  tone  of  the  speech  and  Lucky's  temper 
flamed  up  like  Mont  Pelee.  A  soggy  baked 
potato  was  the  nearest  weapon  to  hand,  and  he 
shot  it  across  the  table  like  a  cannon  ball.  It 
smote  O'Neil  between  the  eyes  and  he  rolled 
off  his  chair  to  the  floor.  When  he  opened  his 
eyes,  Lucky  was  standing  over  him  and  say- 
ing: "De  next  time  you  say  a  woid  about  my 

153 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

religion,  it'll  take  de  doctor  an  hour  to  pull 
my  arm  out  of  your  kisser,  see!" 

Mr.  O'Neil  closed  his  eyes  dizzily  and  indi- 
cated by  a  nod  of  his  prostrate  head  that  he 
saw. 

After  five  months  service  Lucky  left  the 
hospital.  It  was  about  this  time  that  he  got 
one  night  into  a  Bible  Class  conducted  by  Dr. 
A.  F.  Schauffler  for  the  benefit  of  Bible  School 
Teachers,  and  heard  him  read  a  portion  of  a 
chapter  from  the  Bible.  The  idea  of  what  this 
process  was  suddenly  rent  the  mind  of  the 
groping  man  like  an  explosion.  He  dashed 
out  of  the  place  and  ran  most  of  the  way  to 
the  mission,  arriving  there  so  excited  and 
breathless  that  he  could  hardly  tell  what  ailed 
him. 

"Dere  was  a  guy,"  he  labored,  "lampin' 
somep'n  out  of  a  book,  'bout  two  guys  beatin' 
it  along  de  street,  and  dey  come  to  a  guy  pan- 
handlin'  on  de  curb.  Dey  piped  him  off,  and 
one  of  'em  says,  'Pal,  I  ain't  got  a  jitney 
(nickel),  but,  beat  it.'  And  (crescendo  of 
breathless  surprise  from  Lucky!)  de  guy  beats 

154 


RETURN  OF  "LUCKY  BALDWIN" 

it!  What  do  you  tink  o'  dat  now?  What 
was  dat  he  was  lampin'?" 

No  one  could  comprehend  what  the  fellow 
was  driving  at,  until  a  cool-minded  Scotchman, 
looking  with  a  sort  of  mild  disgust  on  Lucky's 
near-hysteria,  proclaimed  oracularly:  "Hoot, 
mon!  I  ken  what  ye're  speerin'  at.  It'll  be 
the  third  o'  Acts,  ye  ignorant  loon,  ye!  The 
story  o'  Peter  and  John  healin'  the  lame  man 
at  the  beautiful  gate  o'  the  temple." 

They  got  him  a  .Bible  and  found  him  the 
place.  Unable  to  read  a  word,  knowing  only 
his  letters  and  them  uncertainly,  Lucky  shut 
himself  up  in  his  room  for  seven  days,  crawling 
out  only  when  hunger  drove  him.  At  the  end 
of  that  time  he  had  taught  himself  to  read  by 
spelling  out  painfully  over  and  over  again  the 
letters  of  that  scene  which  had  so  marvellously 
gripped  his  imagination.  Conjure  up  their 
surprise  had  the  Alabama  sheriff  or  the  San 
Francisco  deputies  come  upon  the  stubby  fore- 
finger of  Lucky  weaving  its  way  to  and  fro 
across  this  almost  worn  out  page  of  the  Bible ! 

Yet  once  he  was  able  to  read  this  chapter 
155 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

and  understand  it,  he  dared  not  turn  forward 
and  try  the  fourth  chapter,  or  backward  to 
the  second.  A  superstitious  terror  had  seized 
him.  He  felt  that  he  was  on  holy  ground. 
He  feared  that  if  he  were  guilty  of  the  pre- 
sumption of  trying  to  read  further,  God  would 
take  away  that  marvellous  new  power  which 
it  seemed  to  Luck}''  had  been  granted  him  like 
a  dispensation  from  the  heavens. 

This  learning  to  read  marked  the  first  real 
breaking  of  light  into  the  mind  of  the  man. 
His  testimonies  at  the  Mission  had  for  some 
time  been  revealing  that  he  had  a  wonderful 
kind  of  power  in  public  speech.  His  friends 
now  determined  to  send  him  to  the  Moody 
Summer  School  at  Northfield,  Massachusetts. 
There  the  irrepressible  Bowery  boy  whose 
originally  genial  temperament  was  fast  ex- 
panding into  a  most  attractive  personality, 
became  very  popular  with  the  students.  Yet 
again  his  ignorance  and  his  temper  came  near 
to  bringing  him  into  disgrace. 

"You  need  to  brush  up  your  vocabulary," 
said  an  amiable,  be-spectacled  molly-coddle 

156 


RETURN  OF  "LUCKY  BALDWIN" 

who  had  just  heard  Lucky  indulge  in  some 
rather  daring  rhetorical  voloplaning.  At  the 
last  word,  Lucky's  beaming  face  reddened 
with  a  sense  of  insult.  An  old  Bowery  instinct 
rushed  over  him  and  he  was  just  poising  on 
one  leg  to  kick  the  be-spectacled  person  on  the 
shins,  when  that  entirely  well-meaning  person 
divined  that  he  was  about  to  be  assaulted,  and 
precipitately  fled. 

When  later  the  man's  meaning  was  ex- 
plained to  Lucky,  he  was  deeply  penitent. 

"Oh,"  he  groaned,  despairingly,  "I  fought 
he  was  callin'  me  a  name.  Vocabulary!  Vo- 
cabulary!" he  repeated  in  a  mystified  way,  "I 
never  heard  me  mudder  use  dat  woid." 

Could  there  be  anything  more  touchingly 
tragical?  The  poor  fellow  had  unconsciously 
revealed  the  hardness  of  his  struggle  and  one 
of  the  inner  secret  cables  by  which  he  was  try- 
ing manfully  to  pull  himself  up  to  the  purer 
heights  of  knowledge.  In  his  endeavor  to 
clean  up  his  speech,  to  determine  what  words 
were  fit  and  what  were  not,  this  child-man  was 
turning  back  in  memory  over  twenty-five 

157 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

riotous  years  to  the  tenement  home  and  the 
speech  of  his  patient  mother  who  died  while 
he  was  yet  a  pariah.  Words  that  had  been 
used  by  her,  were  good  words  beyond  a  ques- 
tion. All  others  were  open  to  suspicion. 

But  notwithstanding  his  blunders,  Baldwin 
persevered  indomitably,  and  he  made  unmis- 
takable progress.  When  he  returned  from 
Northfield,  his  friends  tried  to  get  him  settled 
in  some  occupation;  but  Lucky  was  restless. 
There  was  only  one  occupation  that  interested 
him,  and  that  was  "telling  the  story."  There 
was  only  one  career  to  which  he  could  look  for- 
ward with  any  enthusiasm,  and  that  was  the 
career  of  an  apostle  to  the  underworld.  It 
was  the  only  world  he  knew.  It  was  the  only 
language  he  would  probably  ever  learn  to 
speak  with  fluency.  He  knew  that  amid  the 
viciousness  and  depravity  and  cold  suspicion 
of  these  men,  there  were  rare  simplicities  of 
character,  and  not  only  men  of  occasional  good 
impulse,  but  men  of  iron-will,  of  unbreakable 
spirit,  who,  if  once  started  right  would  go  right 
to  the  end  of  their  days.  The  bottom  streak 

158 


RETURN  OF  "LUCKY  BALDWIN" 

in  Lucky  Baldwin's  character  was  loyalty.  He 
had  climbed  out  of  the  depths.  He  had  got 
his  feet  upon  the  rocks.  He  wanted  to  spend 
all  his  days  pulling  others  up  beside  him. 

His  friends — his  faithful  friends ! — for  what 
man  can  "come  back"  who  makes  no  human 
friends  ? — now  sent  him  for  a  two  years'  course 
at  Moody  Bible  Institute  in  Chicago.  Yet 
this  came  near  to  his  complete  undoing.  Stout 
as  was  the  heart  of  the  man,  the  weight  of  this 
new  hodful  of  learning  came  near  to  breaking 
his  hold  upon  the  ladder  by  which  he  was 
climbing  up.  The  narrative  is  best  left  in  his 
own  language. 

Speaking  of  his  arrival  at  the  Institute,  he 
says: 

"I  went  and  saw  the  main  screw,  that's 
Dean  Gray,  and  I  sat  for  seven  long  weeks 
in  the  lecture  room  and  believe  me,  I  could 
not  understand  two  words  of  what  they  were 
talking  about.  I  used  to  go  to  my  room  and 
cry  out  to  God  to  break  the  shackles  from 
my  brain  and  help  me.  After  seven  long 
weeks,  I  said  to  myself:  'This  is  a  failure. 

159 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

They  have  made  a  failure  of  sending  me  here 
to  Chicago.  Now,  what  will  I  do?'  Well,  the 
Devil  came  right  back  up  to  me  and  said: 
'Why  not  go  right  out  and  turn  off  a  trick, 
Lucky?  Drop  this  whole  thing.  It  is  a 
farce/  I  said,  'I  think  I  will.'  But  there  was 
some  consecrated  boys  that  used  to  pray  for 
me,  and  some  of  them  came  in  to  see  me  that 
night,  and  so  I  held  out  a  while  till  one  day 
Doctor  Evans,  one  of  the  most  Godliest  men  in 
the  institute,  he  stood  up  one  day  and  he  says, 
'We  will  now  consider  the  Epistles  of  Paul 
in  their  chronological  order.'  I  was  sittin'  by 
the  door.  That  word  'chronological'  hit  me 
like  a  bunch  of  bricks.  It  got  me  groggy  in 
a  minute.  I  just  shot  out  of  the  door  and 
went  over  on  West  Madison  Street  and 
thought  I  would  get  me  a  job  in  a  machine 
shop.  I  stood  on  the  corner  and  do  you  know 
there  was  a  song  sung  in  the  old  McCaulley 
Mission : 

'  'Jesus  will  answer  whenever  you  call ; 
He  will  take  care  of  you;  trust  him  for  all.' 

160 


RETURN  OF  "LUCKY  BALDWIN" 

"Well,  that  run  through  me  mind,  and  right 
there  on  the  street  I  made  the  call  and  got  the 
answer;  so  I  hopped  on  a  car  and  went  back 
to  the  Institute. 

"That  night  one  of  the  boys  came  into  my 
room.  He  had  a  sheet  of  paper  in  his  hand, 
and  he  put  his  arm  around  my  shoulder  and 
he  says :  'Lucky,  Old  Man !  You  got  a  hard 
battle.'  I  says,  'What  is  that  you  got  in  your 
mit  ?'  He  says,  'That  is  the  lecture  from  Doc- 
tor Evans.'  I  took  it  and  commenced  to  read, 
and  I  could  understand  it  when  I  read  it,  but 
I  couldn't  understand  it  when  he  talked  it. 
'Where  did  you  get  that?'  I  says.  'Where 
could  I  get  something  like  that  and  how  much 
would  it  cost?'  I  was  willing  to  do  any  work 
for  it,  I  would  do  anything  if  I  could  only  get 
it.  He  says,  'When  I  make  one  I  can  make 
two.'  'Oh,  man,'  I  said,  'will  you  do  it?' 

"That  was  the  beginning  of  my  Christian 
sweetness.  I  don't  care  what  words  you  put 
in  there,  'Bo,  none  of  them  will  tell  what  I 
felt." 

And  this  was  the  beginning  of  the  end  of 
161 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

Lucky  Baldwin's  struggle.  True  he  over- 
worked his  unaccustomed  brain  by  incessant 
study,  and  eclipse  again  threatened,  but  he 
sunned  his  way  out  of  this  gloom  also. 

To-day  at  919  Wells  Street,  over  on  Chi- 
cago's North  Side,  not  far  from  the  Bridewell, 
as  the  Cook  County  Jail  is  called,  there  is  a 
little  Rescue  Mission  christened  The  Home 
of  Hope,  and  the  Superintendent  of  that  Mis- 
sion is  Christian  J.  Balf,  alias,  "Lucky  Bald- 
win," the  Bowery  thug  and  gangster. 

On  certain  Sunday  afternoons  Lucky  con- 
ducts religious  services  in  the  Bridewell,  and 
the  prisoners  listen  as  they  never  listened  to 
preaching  before.  Some  of  the  men  have 
robbed  with  this  preacher  from  coast  to  coast; 
some  of  them  have  fought  with  him,  and  can 
see  the  scars  they  put  upon  his  face;  all  know 
him  by  reputation.  They  know  that  above  all 
else,  as  a  pal,  he  was  "right,"  and  they  are 
forced  to  believe  that  as  a  preacher,  he  is 
"right,"  too.  The  preacher  on  his  part  knows 
these  men,  many  of  them  personally.  He 
knows  the  stride  in  which  they  think,  he  knows 

162 


RETURN  OF  "LUCKY  BALDWIN" 

the  rhythm  of  their  lives,  and  he  skilfully  turns 
the  story  of  the  Prodigal  Son,  or  the  Cruci- 
fixion account  by  John  into  that  weird  under- 
world lingo  and  drops  it  into  the  minds  of  these 
prisoners. 

Every  morning  when  the  prison  doors  open 
for  those  whose  time  is  up,  Lucky  Baldwin  is 
there  to  meet  them  and  give  them  a  shove  in 
the  right  direction.  They  may  need  a  shirt, 
a  suit  of  clothes  or  a  pair  of  shoes.  Above  all, 
if  they  are  going  to  live  right,  they  will  need 
a  job.  Lucky  out  of  slender  resources  does 
his  best  to  help  them  all.  He  does  not  preach 
now  in  words;  he  loves  them  in  actions,  and 
invites  them  to  come  at  night  to  the  mission. 

Sometimes  the  nightly  audience  is  discour- 
agingly  small,  but  Lucky's  cheerful  optimism 
and  his  ready  smile  never  fail.  His  stocky 
figure  is  well-muscled  and  symmetrical.  He 
looks  like  an  athlete.  He  has  plenty  of  mag- 
netism. His  sermons  are  never  dull.  They 
offer  a  humble  man's  interpretation,  to  other 
humble,  halting,  broken  men  such  as  he  once 
was.  Lucky's  vocabulary  still  needs  improv- 

163 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

ing,  but  that  does  not  worry  him  a  particle. 
If  he  has  no  word  he  makes  one,  and  you  un- 
derstand him.  What  does  any  one  care  that 
he  says  "peacify"  for  pacify,  and  "rendelouse" 
for  rendezvous?  Lucky  is  learning.  He  is 
only  four  years  from  illiteracy.  He  knows  his 
Bible  astonishingly  well.  And  he  is  tactful 
in  the  extreme — all  heart  and  tenderness  for 
the  broken  men  who  are  now  going  through 
what  he  once  lived. 

Lucky  has  difficulty  at  times  in  finding  finan- 
cial support  for  his  little  mission.  It  is  new. 
It  has  no  endowment.  It  occupies  a  rented 
room.  Its  Superintendent  lives  from  hand  to 
mouth.  But  he  is  a  merry  soul  for  he  has 
found  himself,  and  he  has  found  his  work.  He 
is  happy  in  the  respect  of  men  whose  confi- 
dence is  worth  having.  Police  who  once 
hunted  him  now  help  him.  Jailers  who  feared 
his  restless  cunning,  now  facilitate  his  visits 
to  prisoners.  Officers  out  over  the  country 
who  have  "wanted"  Lucky,  and  perhaps  as  a 
matter  of  technicality,  "want"  him  yet,  know 
where  he  is;  but  they  would  not  take  him. 

164 


RETURN  OF  "LUCKY  BALDWIN" 

They  know  that  Lucky  is  building  a  life.  They 
know  that  he  is  using  his  own  misspent  past 
as  a  chain  to  draw  others  up  from  the  depths. 

Lucky  Baldwin  was  host  at  a  strange 
Thanksgiving  dinner  last  autumn.  Three 
hundred  men  were  his  guests.  Each  guest 
was  or  had  been  a  citizen  of  the  underworld. 
The  Chicago  newspapers  gave  large  space  to 
this  remarkable  dinner.  "Red  the  Slugger," 
"Vere  de  Pike,"  "Slim  Red,"  "Crack  Marx," 
and  other  well-known  criminals  now  reformed 
or  in  the  process  of  reformation,  are  spoken 
of  as  having  been  present.  During  the  dinner 
many  of  these  men  stood  up  and  told  what 
the  Mission  and  its  Superintendent  who  only 
four  Thanksgivings  back  was  an  outcast  like 
themselves,  have  done  for  them.  By  these 
speeches  they  held  out  the  olive  branch  of  hope 
to  the  men  still  in  crime  or  not  many  days  re- 
moved from  its  consequences,  who  were  there 
by  the  score. 

That  Thieves'  Thanksgiving  Dinner  caused 
some  of  discernment  to  remark  that  Lucky's 
little  Home  of  Hope,  gaining  in  power  and  in- 

165 


fluence  with  the  years,  is  doing  and  will  do 
more  to  reform  criminals  and  curb  crime  than 
any  jail  in  Illinois.  This,  of  course,  is  one  of 
that  sort  of  assertions  that  can  never  be  proved 
or  disproved.  But  this  much  is  sure. 

That  dinner  was  the  apotheosis  of  Lucky 
Baldwin.  In  it  his  guests  acknowledged  the 
completeness  of  his  reform  and  the  genuine- 
ness of  his  apostleship.  He  was  a  "down  and 
out."  Now  he  is  an  "up  and  in."  He  was 
an  apache.  Now  he  is  an  apostle.  He  has 
come  back! 


166 


VI 

THREE   WAYS   FBOM   WHISKEY 

EARLY  one  morning  some  twenty  years  ago 
a  man  wearing  an  undershirt  that  had  never 
seen  a  washtub  and  a  seatless  pair  of  overalls, 
skulked  into  a  saloon  in  a  mining  town  in  Ari- 
zona and  begged  for  a  drink  of  whiskey.  The 
bar-tender  was  a  yellow-faced  half-breed,  and 
as  such  far  below  the  social  status  of  any  white 
man.  Social  status  not  being  negotiable  for 
whiskey  was  something  this  white  man  still 
retained,  and  not  only  retained  but  carefully 
conserved.  He  took  a  bleary  satisfaction  in 
the  fact  that  he  was  white  and  that  the  name 
of  his  grandfather  was  to  be  found  upon  the 
pages  of  any  American  history.  Even  when 
he  begged  the  half-breed  for  a  drink,  he  made 
it  clear  that  the  acceptance  of  it  conferred  a 
favor. 

An  hour  later  this  same  man  was  lying  face 
167 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

down  in  the  sand  under  a  tree  on  the  outskirts 
of  the  town.  Going  methodically  from  one 
saloon  to  another  he  had  begged  enough 
whiskey  to  get  himself  helplessly  drunk  by 
eight  o'clock  in  the  morning.  The  half-breed, 
on  the  way  to  an  adobe  house  in  the  canon  at 
the  rear  of  the  little  town,  passed  near,  and, 
observing  the  helpless  condition  of  the  drunken 
white  man  who  was  socially  his  superior, 
walked  over  to  the  prostrate  figure  and  began 
to  kick  it.  The  drunkard,  rousing  slowly  with 
the  vague  impression  that  a  herd  of  mules  had 
stampeded  over  his  body,  lifted  himself  on  his 
hands  and  stared  about  uncertainly.  He  saw 
no  mules  but  recognized  the  retreating  figure 
of  the  bar-tender.  A  horrible  appreciation  of 
what  had  happened  took  possession  of  his 
mind.  He  staggered  to  his  feet  with  a  bellow 
of  rage. 

"Did  you  kick  me,  bar-keep?"  he  screamed. 

"Si,  Senor"  admitted  the  half-breed,  over 
his  shoulder. 

Lost  for  a  moment  in  horror-stricken  con- 
templation of  the  indignity  put  upon  him,  the 

168 


THREE  WAYS  FROM  WHISKEY 

drunkard  tried  to  stand  vigorously  erect,  but 
failing,  cast  himself  upon  the  ground,  and 
rolled  about,  moaning  and  beating  the  earth 
in  a  frenzy  of  rage  and  mortification. 

From  this  hour  the  sot,  who  for  ten  years 
had  been  a  hopeless  drunkard,  never  again 
touched  liquor.  When  I  saw  him  last  a  dozen 
years  since,  he  was  District  Attorney  of  one 
of  the  most  populous  counties  in  Arizona. 

It  was  the  kick  that  did  it!  As  a  gen- 
eral proposition  it  is  always  a  kick  that  does 
it. 

The  man  who  comes  back  from  the  liquor 
habit  without  drugs,  inwardly  gets  a  moral 
kick  of  some  sort  that  rearticulates  the  bones 
in  his  spine.  Men  get  this  emotional  shock  in 
variously  interesting  ways. 

Take  for  instance  the  case  of  Henry  Alli- 
son. 

In  the  beginning  he  was  a  clubbishly  in- 
clined, money-making  young  man  in  New 
York  City,  who  went  on  sprees  for  the  joke  of 
the  thing — because  men  were  amused  at  his 
tipsy  antics,  and  he  fancied  occasional  drunk- 

169 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

enness  made  him  popular.  But  when  a  spree 
cost  him  the  presidency  of  a  bank,  and  losing 
the  presidency  caused  the  loss  of  his  investment 
and  that  of  his  friends,  he  woke  up  with  a  jolt, 
and  forswore  intoxicants  forever.  He  imme- 
diately started  business  afresh,  but  this  time 
in  Chicago,  one  thousand  miles  from  his  con- 
vivial reputation,  and  again  succeeded  bril- 
liantly; but  in  the  very  hour  of  reaping,  his 
over-fed  egotism  could  not  resist  the  tempta- 
tion to  show  Chicago  how  a  New  York  gen- 
tleman gets  drunk.  The  attempt  was  disas- 
trously successful,  resulting  in  complications 
that  completely  stripped  Henry  of  his  busi- 
ness. Again  he  forswore  liquor,  and  this  time 
cursed  himself  for  a  fool.  He  had  no  liquor 
habit.  He  never  felt  the  need  of  alcohol.  It 
was  only  that  when  he  took  one  drink,  that 
drink  demanded  another,  and  so  on  ad  inebria- 
tum.  It  required  no  adding  machine  nor  table 
of  logarithms  to  figure  out  that  if  he  had  not 
taken  the  first  drink  he  would  never  have  taken 
the  drink  that  made  him  drunk.  He  there- 
upon formulated  this  axiom:  "Take  care  of 

170 


THREE  WAYS  FROM  WHISKEY 

the  first  drink  and  the  drunks  will  take  care  of 
themselves." 

But  Allison  did  not  linger  long  over  his  mor- 
alizing and  aphorism-manufacturing.  He 
had  rare  social  gifts,  burning  enthusiasms  and 
a  positive  genius  for  business  promotion. 
Within  three  years  he  had  a  fortune  in  his 
grasp  in  Texas — but  again  lost  it  through 
overweening  egotism  in  putting  on  the  gloves 
with  that  dangerous  first  drink.  After  this  he 
began  to  doubt  himself  a  little  and  pointed  his 
course  for  New  England,  with  the  idea  that 
he  would  be  safer  in  a  more  tightly  corseted 
state  of  society.  Here  for  a  time  all  was  well, 
and  his  feet  again  went  dancing  up  the  ladder 
of  success;  but — the  inevitable!  One  night  at 
an  elaborate  dinner  of  a  friend,  the  olive  in  a 
cocktail  winked  alluringly  at  Henry  and  the 
ladder  came  down  with  a  crash. 

Here,  then,  was  Mr.  Allison  at  forty  years 
of  age,  penniless  and  a  trifle  discouraged;  yet 
possessed  of  good  address  and  good  clothes, 
with  business  genius  unimpaired,  but  subject 
to  periodical  alcoholic  brain  storms  which  in- 

171 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

variably  robbed  him  and  his  wife  and  daugh- 
ters of  the  fruits  of  all  his  labors. 

And  the  worst  of  it  was  that  Henry  had  no 
primary  appetite  for  liquor.  He  was,  to  quote 
himself,  "just  such  an  egotistical  idiot"  that 
once  in  so  often  he  raised  a  first  glass  to  his 
lips,  and  after  that  first  glass  his  appetite 
flared  up  like  a  powder  train.  To  his  own 
way  of  thinking  he  was  not  an  alcoholic.  He 
was  a  fool  and  must  be  cured  of  his  folly  or  go 
to  the  human  scrap  heap.  He  thought  of  con- 
sulting an  alienist,  but  his  wife  suggested  in- 
stead Dr.  Samuel  Worcester,  Rector  of  Em- 
manuel Church  in  Boston,  and  head  of  the 
Emmanuel  Movement.  Dr.  Worcester  has 
been  extremely  successful  in  treating  men  and 
women  with  deranged  nervous  systems  or  with 
sick  souls. 

Allison,  having  concluded  that  his  soul  was 
sick,  or  that  his  mind  missed  a  click  here  and 
there,  especially  when  the  subject  of  first 
glasses  was  being  considered,  readily  consented 
to  go  and  see  Dr.  Worcester,  conjuring  up 
impressions  of  a  nice,  gentle  little  man  with  a 

172 


THREE  WAYS  FROM  WHISKEY 

sympathetic  voice  who  would  palaver  over  him 
with  minglings  of  prayer,  psychology  and  ad- 
monition. Instead  Allison  encountered  a 
florid-faced  giant  who  threw  him  on  the  de- 
fensive instantly  by  looking  not  especially 
pleased  to  see  him.  While  Henry  stood  a 
trifle  disconcerted,  the  tall  man  threw  a  brick 
by  asking  bluntly  in  a  by  no  means  conciliatory 
tone: 

"Well,  what's  the  matter  with  you?" 

The  question  came  crashing  into  Allison's 
mind  like  a  sash- weight  through  a  window ;  in 
fact  it  went  smashing  right  through  the  floor 
of  his  conscious  mind  down  into  that  subliminal 
cellar  in  which  was  stored  up  the  real  truth 
of  his  life,  the  unpleasant  truth  which  his  ego- 
tistic will  had  sternly  battened  below  hatches. 

"I  am  a  drunkard,"  replied  Henry,  just  as 
bluntly ;  "that's  what's  the  matter  with  me." 

This  was  really  his  subliminal  self  talking, 
and  what  that  subliminal  self  had  said  sur- 
prised Henry  beyond  measure.  Although  he 
knew  it  was  the  truth  the  minute  he  heard  it, 
it  was  something  he  had  never  confessed 

173 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

hitherto,  even  to  himself.  At  no  time  had  he 
ever  suspected  that  he  was  a  drunkard.  Now 
all  at  once  he  knew  it. 

It  was  the  imagination  of  appetite  that  made 
the  olive  leer  at  him.  It  was  the  actual  want 
of  the  liquor  that  led  him  to  take  those  fatal  first 
glasses.  All  those  specious  arguments,  about 
independence,  personal  liberty,  and  strength 
of  character  which  led  him  to  override  judg- 
ment, were  not,  as  he  had  supposed,  indepen- 
dent reasoning,  but  pretexts,  vapors  and  chi- 
meras which  the  drink  craving  got  up  in  his 
mind. 

While  Henry  was  still  dazed  by  this  sudden 
discovery,  the  imperturbable  giant  on  the 
other  side  of  the  table  threw  another  brick,  at 
the  same  time  driving  two  steel  blue  eyes  into 
Allison's  soul  until  he  felt  himself  squirming 
like  an  eel  upon  a  pitchfork. 

"How  long  do  you  want  to  be  a  drunkard?" 
was  the  question  Dr.  Worcester  now  asked. 

Henry  leaped  to  his  feet,  his  whole  body 
shaking —  What!  Want  to  be  a  drunkard? 
Ridiculous!  He  did  not  want  to  be  a  drunk- 

174 


THREE  WAYS  FROM  WHISKEY 

ard  at  all.     He  had  never  even  suspected  till 
this  moment  that  he  was  a  drunkard. 

He  began  walking  excitedly  up  and  down 
the  room,  his  lips  pouring  out  a  steady  stream 
of  confessions.  He  almost  forgot  Dr.  Wor- 
cester. He  was  monologueing  to  himself,  pil- 
ing up  instance  upon  instance,  detail  upon  de- 
tail, and  all  tending  to  prove  to  himself  that 
he  was  a  drunkard  and  that  he  had  been  a 
drunkard  for  ten  years. 

Dr.  Worcester  listened  in  a  bored  sort  of 
way  till  Henry  had  emptied  himself. 

"Now,"  said  the  doctor  of  moral  medicine, 
"come  here  and  sit  down.  After  a  mental 
emetic  of  that  sort  the  way  is  cleared  for  some- 
thing better." 

Dr.  Worcester's  manner  had  changed  com- 
pletely. He  was  now  all  sympathy  and  un- 
derstanding. 

"Place  yourself  in  a  perfectly  comfortable 
position  in  this  easy  chair,"  he  said.  "I  am 
going  to  give  you  a  treatment.  I  am  going  to 
relax  you  perfectly.  Please  close  your  eyes." 

Dr.  Worcester*  then  speaking  in  a  quiet  easy 
175 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

tone  of  voice,  proceeded  to  reduce  his  patient 
to  a  state  of  extreme  suggestibility.  Henry, 
soon,  no  more  than  half  conscious  of  his  body, 
felt  as  if  his  members  were  gently  drifting 
away  from  him  on  some  mysterious  current. 
Presently  he  was  just  a  naked  soul  poised  on 
a  little  island  of  time  in  the  midst  of  eternity; 
and  he  could  hear  Dr.  Worcester  talking 
softly.  Like  that  first  question,  the  Doctor's 
communications  seemed  to  filter  through  into 
the  basement  of  his  mind;  but  by  and  by  that 
receptacle  was  full  and  like  rising  water, 
words,  phrases,  ideas  began  to  slop  around  on 
the  floor  of  consciousness.  Presently  Henry 
felt  himself  taking  hold  on  some  very  wonder- 
ful thoughts. 

"You  are  a  new  man  now,"  Dr.  Worcester 
was  suggesting.  "You  will  have  a  new  con- 
trol over  your  body.  You  no  longer  are  a 
drunkard.  You  do  not  want  to  drink.  You 
never  will  drink  again.  You  have  emptied 
out  your  old  habits.  You  will  put  something 
better,  nobler  in  the  place  of  them.  .  .  ." 

Allison  in  his  poised,  detached  state  of  mind 
176 


THREE  WAYS  FROM  WHISKEY 

found  himself  accepting  these  statements  as 
absolute  truth.  The  ideas  which  they  em- 
bodied stood  up  solid  and  concrete  like  pillars, 
and  he  gripped  them  about  with  the  arms  of 
his  soul. 

"You  may  open  your  eyes,"  said  Dr.  Wor- 
cester. 

Henry  did  so,  but  after  the  first  shock  of 
opening  them  sat  staring  speechless  into  the 
outer  world  of  reality.  He  did  not  wish  to 
move.  He  was  thinking,  connecting  the  new 
set  of  ideas  with  the  practical  problems  of  the 
life  he  had  to  live.  This  process  of  readjust- 
ment proceeded  rapidly.  He  made  himself  a 
whole  new  theory  of  life  in  these  silent  motion- 
less moments. 

The  minute  Henry  got  his  theory  on  its  legs, 
he  stood  up. 

"Dr.  Worcester,"  he  said,  "I  came  into  this 
room  a  drunkard.  I  am  going  out  a  sober 
man.  I  know  that  I  will  never  drink  again. 
My  life  is  on  a  new  plane." 

Allison  had  got  his  kick! 

There  were  other  visits  to  Dr.  Worcester, 
177 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

and  other  happenings  at  the  first  visit  not  set 
down  here — including  a  prayer  which  Henry 
says  was  the  first  real  prayer  of  his  life; — but 
he  had  got  his  kick.  Now  his  host  at  dinner 
parties  may  put  an  olive  in  one  glass  and  a 
cherry  in  the  other  and  cocktail  liquor  in  both, 
and  he  will  look  on  either  indifferently.  They 
may  range  his  plate  around  with  spindled  crys- 
tal of  suggestive  and  alluring  shape,  but  he 
will  turn  the  whole  semicircle  down  upon  the 
cloth.  He  says  it  would  be  impossible  for  him 
to  do  anything  else — that  he  has  developed  a 
new  thing  in  his  system — a  "spiritual  muscle." 
Besides  which,  he  is  again  in  business,  is  mak- 
ing money  and  keeping  it,  or  having  the  fun 
of  spending  it  himself  and  upon  his  own. 

Very  different  was  the  experience  of  the 
newspaper  man,  William  H.  Johnson,  who 
also  got  a  "kick"  out  of  the  gutter.  But  along 
with  Johnson's  story  goes  that  of  a  young  Jew 
named  Jacoby.  Johnson  is  an  alias,  but 
Jacoby  is  not.  You  can  find  the  name  of 
Ernest  Jacoby  in  the  city  directory  of  Boston. 

178 


THREE  WAYS  FROM  WHISKEY 

He  is  a  young  business  man,  who  carries 
friendliness  as  a  side  line.  He  has  never  been 
a  drinker  himself;  but  the  peculiar  helplessness 
of  the  drunkard  has  always  appealed  to  him. 
He  spends  the  most  of  his  spare  moments  and 
some  that  are  not  to  spare,  trying  to  reach  and 
help  unfortunates  of  this  class.  He  has  been 
remarkably  successful.  His  method  is — 
friendliness.  Men  who  are  all  but  hopeless, 
perhaps  utterly  so,  hear  about  this  young  Jew. 
They  go  up  in  the  elevators  to  his  suite  in  a 
large  office  building,  they  get  tangled  up  in 
the  machinery  of  his  office,  they  clutter  up  his 
waiting-rooms  with  their  presence,  appearing 
strangely  incongruous  amid  the  streams  of  ar- 
riving and  departing  customers  and  salesmen, 
but  always  they  get  a  chance  to  meet  Mr. 
Jacoby.  He  talks  to  each  individually.  If 
there  is  any  response  in  the  man  he  usually 
brings  it  out.  His  patience  and  perspicacity 
seldom  fail.  He  has  three  specifics,  hope, 
work  and  friendship.  Out  of  his  activities  has 
grown  a  club.  It  is  popularly  called  "The 
Drunkard's  Club,"  but  the  members  naturally 

179 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

prefer  another  name.  Out  of  respect  for  its 
founder  they  call  it  The  Jacoby  Club.  The 
Emmanuel  Church  which  shelters  and  inspires 
to  many  good  works  in  Boston,  has  given  this 
Club  a  home  which  is  open  every  evening  in  the 
week.  In  it  are  reading-tables,  comfortable 
chairs,  books,  magazines  and  musical  instru- 
ments. In  winter  there  is  a  cheery  open  fire. 
In  summer  there  are  cooling  fans  and  clinking 
pitchers  of  ice  water.  There  are  two  conditions 
for  membership  in  The  Jacoby  Club.  First, 
the  man  shall  actually  want  to  be  helped;  and 
second,  he  must  be  willing  to  help  some- 
body else.  The  moment  a  man  joins  the 
Club  he  is  assigned  to  the  personal  over- 
sight of  some  other  member  of  the  Club, 
who  thus  becomes  his  step-brother.  In  the 
same  way  someone  else  is  put  under  the 
new  member's  care.  From  that  moment  he 
has  one  truly  sympathetic  friend  to  hold 
hands  with  him  through  all  his  struggles, 
while  at  the  same  time  his  own  soul  is  auto- 
matically strengthened  because  his  weakness 
must  be  made  strength  for  the  friending  of 

180 


THREE  WAYS  FROM  WHISKEY 

another.  The  Club  has  its  regular  meeting  on 
Saturday  night.  The  roll  is  called,  and  for 
every  man  not  answering,  inquiry  is  immedi- 
ately made  of  the  step-brother.  If  Pythias 
does  not  know  he  must  get  immediately  out 
and  hunt  up  his  Damon,  but  as  a  matter  of 
fact  the  Club  members  keep  such  watchful  tab 
on  one  another  that  at  the  close  of  the  meeting 
everybody  knows  the  progress  of  the  battle 
each  is  making  against  the  mortal  enemy  of 
all. 

And  now  we  can  pick  up  the  trail  of  empty 
bottles  that  leads  to  Billie  Johnson.  In  the 
first  ten  years  of  his  life  as  a  newspaper  man 
he  punished  liquor  with  impunity.  In  the 
next  ten  years  liquor  punished  him.  He  lost 
one  job  after  another.  He  inherited  consid- 
erable property  but  drank  it  down  or  threw 
it  away  in  drunken  revels.  He  took  the 
Keeley  cure  twice.  Three  times  he  was  con- 
fined in  various  state  institutions  for  dip- 
somaniacs. He  made  many  new  starts.  In- 
fluential friends  helped  him  with  money  and 
opportunities.  On  the  last  of  those  occasions 

181 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

he  went  from  Boston  to  New  York  to  accept 
a  lucrative  position.  He  rode  in  a  parlor  car, 
and  had  plenty  of  money  in  his  pockets.  He 
was  well  dressed.  His  suit  case  and  travelling 
bag  were  filled  with  the  sort  of  thing  a  man 
used  to  soft  living  considers  essential.  On  his 
arm  was  an  overcoat  made  by  one  of  the  best 
tailors  in  Boston.  He  left  Boston  thus  ac- 
coutred on  a  Tuesday  morning,  and  arrived 
in  New  York  City  in  the  afternoon  in  the 
same  approximate  condition.  On  Wednesday 
morning  about  eleven  o'clock  he  sat  freezing 
on  a  bench  in  Union  Square.  One  eye  was 
blackened,  his  knuckles  were  skinned,  his 
clothing  was  muddy  and  bedraggled,  and  his 
hat  was  gone.  He  had  only  a  few  cents  in  his 
pocket  and  was  without  the  remotest  idea 
where  his  overcoat,  his  suit  cases  or  his  money 
were.  The  events  of  the  last  hour  were  per- 
fectly clear  to  him.  For  about  fifty  minutes 
he  had  been  sitting  on  the  bench  with  his  teeth 
chattering  in  the  January  gale.  In  the  ten 
minutes  before  that  fifty  he  remembered  being 
kicked  out  of  a  barber  shop  because  he  had  in- 

182 


THREE  WAYS  FROM  WHISKEY 

sisted  they  had  given  him  change  for  a  one- 
dollar  bill  instead  of  a  ten.  He  judged  that 
the  objection  had  occupied  about  three  min- 
utes and  that  it  had  taken  the  other  seven  to 
make  his  way  to  where  he  now  sat,  a  part  of 
the  distance  being  travelled  on  hands  and 
knees.  Of  the  time  back  of  this  sixty  minutes 
he  had  no  recollection  whatever  until  he  came 
to  three  o'clock  of  the  previous  day  when  he 
took  a  drink  in  a  saloon  not  a  block  from  the 
Grand  Central  Station — just  one  drink  to  cele- 
brate his  entry  upon  a  life  of  prosperity  and 
teetotalism  in  New  York  City. 

Mr.  Johnson  was  long  in  getting  back  to 
Boston.  He  arrived  there  a  broken  man. 
Many  changes  had  occurred.  His  home  had 
been  sold  under  a  mortgage.  His  children 
were  scattered  in  three  states.  His  wife  was 
working  as  housekeeper  for  a  man  who  had 
once  been  in  his  employ.  Johnson  gave  him- 
self up  to  bitter  thoughts.  He  had  thrown  his 
life  away.  He  had  been  false  to  his  children, 
false  to  his  wife  and  false  to  his  opportunities. 
Still  he  dreamed  of  reforming.  A  childish  let- 

183 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

ter  from  one  of  his  boys  inspired  him.  He 
talked  to  his  wife,  but  she  without  one  word  of 
reproach  confessed  her  hopelessness.  He 
babbled  of  rehabilitation  to  his  relatives  and 
such  old-time  friends  as  he  could  meet;  but  so 
far  from  exhibiting  faith  in  his  future,  their 
disposition  was  to  have  him  committed  to  the 
State  Hospital  for  the  Insane.  Johnson  was 
barely  able  to  dissuade  them  from  this  pur- 
pose. His  wife,  or  some  relative,  wrote  to  the 
last  institution  in  which  he  had  been  confined 
to  ask  the  superintendent  if  he  thought  there 
was  any  possibility  that  Johnson  could  reform. 
The  superintendent  replied  from  the  record, 
not  remembering  Johnson  personally,  "A  con- 
firmed dipsomaniac — no  hope."  This  letter 
got  into  Billy's  hands.  It  made  him  mad.  It 
was  the  moral  kick!  He  determined  to  show 
this  jag  doctor,  and  everybody  else,  that  he 
could  come  back.  He  tore  the  letter  up  in  his 
wife's  presence,  declaring  testily: 

"I  think  I  have  got  a  little  sand  left." 
For  a  while  he  lived  precariously  doing  odd 
jobs  and  drinking  freely,  but  continued  to  look 

184 


THREE  WAYS  FROM  WHISKEY 

for  steady  work.  In  reality  he  was  looking 
for  someone  who  would  believe  in  him.  At 
last  he  heard  of  Mr.  Jacoby  and  went  to  see 
him,  standing  wistfully  before  the  hand-rail 
till  a  tallish  young  man  with  a  long  inquisitive 
nose,  thin  flaxen  hair,  very  sharp  kindly  eyes 
and  a  mouth  that  smiled  easily,  came  out,  shook 
him  by  the  hand  and  looked  into  his  face  in  a 
manner  the  most  engagingly  sympathetic  that 
Johnson  had  ever  experienced.  Jacoby  stood 
with  his  arm  on  Billy's  shoulder  while  he  told 
his  story  in  a  low  voice  and  wound  up  by  say- 
ing, as  he  had  to  his  wife:  "I  think  I  have  a 
little  sand  left." 

"Sand!"  exclaimed  Jacoby,  with  enthusiasm. 
"Why  of  course  you  have,  Mr.  Johnson.  All 
in  the  world  you  want  is  a  job." 

"Yes,"  admitted  Johnson,  straightening  up 
with  the  feeling  of  a  conqueror,  because  at  last 
he  had  got  someone  to  believe  in  him.  "A  job 
is  all  I  need  now." 

There  was  certainly  something  strangely 
magnetic  about  this  young  Jew.  He  said  he 
believed  that  Johnson  could  come  back;  and 

185 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

Johnson  seemed  to  feel  immediately  that  Ja- 
coby  and  himself  made  a  majority. 

"But  first,"  proposed  Mr.  Jacoby,  "y°u  want 
to  go  to  a  doctor  and  get  your  nerves  braced 
up  and  some  treatment  for  that  trouble  in  your 
legs  you  were  telling  me  about." 

Mr.  Jacoby  then  gave  him  two  cards,  one 
to  a  doctor  and  one  to  a  manufacturing  firm 
in  the  suburbs,  asking  that  he  be  put  to  work. 
This  latter  secured  him  a  position  as  night 
watchman. 

While  Johnson  had  desultory  work  he  drank 
desultorily.  With  his  thoughts  of  reform  he 
had  latterly  always  connected  the  idea  of  a 
steady  job.  Now  he  had  the  steady  job  and 
he  promptly  girded  his  spirit  for  the  fight 
against  liquor.  His  wages  were  nine  dollars 
a  week.  His  hours  were  from  six  at  night  to 
six  in  the  morning — about  the  worst  in  the 
world  for  a  man  battling  with  the  drink  crav- 
ing. But  Johnson  got  through  the  first  night 
without  a  drink,  and  said  to  himself:  "By 
golly,  I  was  right,  I  have  got  a  little  sand  left. 
Now  if  I  can  do  one  twelve  hours  I  can  do 

186 


THREE  WAYS  FROM  WHISKEY 

another;"  and  so  he  set  to  work  to  keep  sober 
until  night  time  when  he  should  go  on  duty. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  Johnson  had 
been  defeated  a  great  many  times.  People 
lost  faith  in  his  promises  and  he  had  almost 
lost  faith  in  them  himself.  In  the  preliminary 
manoeuverings  of  this  final  campaign  he  was 
careful  never  to  say  he  could  make  good.  He 
only  said  he  thought  he  could  make  good.  He 
did  not  even  tell  Mr.  Jacoby  he  would  not 
drink  on  this  job.  He  only  told  him  he 
thought  he  had  one  more  fight  in  him.  So 
now  when  he  was  actually  at  work  he  made 
himself  pledges  but  twelve  hours  long.  At 
night  he  said :  "I  won't  take  a  drink  till  morn- 
ing." In  the  morning  again  he  said,  "I  won't 
take  a  drink  till  night."  And  every  day  or 
two  he  dropped  in  to  see  Jacoby.  A  few  soft 
words  from  Jacoby,  that  sympathetic  hand- 
shake and  the  tender,  almost  woman's  glance 
of  the  young  Jew's  eye  acted  on  his  spirits  like 
a  tonic.  Several  times  Billy  was  near  to  a 
fall,  but  checked  himself  by  saying:  "Any- 
how I  won't  take  a  drink  till  I  see  Jacoby." 

187 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

After  he  saw  Jacoby,  for  a  while  at  least,  he 
didn't  want  a  drink.  Besides  he  was  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Jacoby  Club  now,  and  very  much  in- 
terested in  keeping  a  man  named  Riley  sober. 
He  felt  if  Riley  should  some  day  smell  liquor 
on  his  breath  or  if  he,  Johnson,  should  get  to 
drinking,  it  might  throw  Riley  out  of  his 
stride,  or  perhaps  cause  him  altogether  to  lose 
his  place  in  the  race.  So  between  thinking  of 
Riley,  and  of  his  wife  housekeeping  for  this 
man  who  used  to  work  for  him,  and  reading 
crudely  spelled  and  tear-stained  letters  from 
his  scattered  children,  asking  to  come  home — 
with  frequent  visits  to  Mr.  Jacoby  the  days 
stretched  forward  until  it  was  three  months 
since  Johnson  had  touched  liquor. 

One  day  the  manager  of  the  factory  sent  for 
him  and  said : 

"Mr.  Johnson,  you  are  a  man  of  too  much 
ability  to  be  wasting  your  time  as  you  are. 
How  does  it  come  about  that  you  are  doing  this 
sort  of  thing?" 

Johnson,  who  in  these  ninety  days  had  done 
a  good  deal  of  thinking,  was  feeling  pretty 

188 


THREE  WAYS  FROM  WHISKEY 

hard  against  himself.  He  told  the  manager 
why  he  was  a  night  watchman  instead  of  the 
editor  of  a  great  daily  newspaper,  and  did  it 
without  glossing  over  the  story  very  much. 

"Well,"  asked  the  manager,  "do  you  think 
you  are  through  with  the  booze  game?" 

"In  all  human  probability  I  am,"  replied 
Johnson  cautiously,  as  usual  with  him  in  those 
days.  "I  have  made  a  good  many  resolutions, 
but  I  think  I  am  through.  /  think  I  have  a 
little  sand  left." 

After  this  talk,  Johnson  was  put  to  work  in 
the  shipping  department  where  he  had  a  good 
chance  to  become  acquainted  with  the  finished 
goods.  A  couple  of  months  later  he  was  on  the 
road  as  a  salesman.  He  made  good,  and  after 
four  years  became  manager  of  an  important 
branch  store,  in  which  position  he  has  now  been 
for  three  years.  His  salary  has  been  raised  re- 
peatedly. He  is  on  his  feet  financially,  physi- 
cally, and  morally.  His  home  is  reestablished. 
His  wife  keeps  house  for  her  own  husband,  and 
the  children  are  back  under  the  roof -tree. 

It  is  now  seven  years  since  Johnson  shuffled 
189 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

into  Jacoby's  outer  office,  and  he  still  feels  that 
he  has  "a  little  sand  left." 

It  was  a  moral  "kick"  plus  the  genius  of  a 
Jew  for  friendship  that  put  Johnson  out  of 
the  whiskey  wrestling  game. 

For  our  next  example,  in  which  the  springs 
of  action  are  more  subtle  than  in  either  of  the 
previous  cases,  we  must  shift  the  scene  from 
Massachusetts  to  New  Jersey  and  to  the  Self- 
Master  Colony.  This  Colony  sits  on  the  crown 
of  a  hill  a  few  miles  from  Elizabeth,  New 
Jersey.  It  consists  of  fifty  acres  of  land,  sur- 
rounding an  old  colonial  mansion — lately  re- 
furbished till  its  tall  columns  gleam  like  marble 
shafts  among  the  trees — with  the  usual  comple- 
ment of  out-buildings,  which,  however,  instead 
of  housing  horses,  cows,  fodder  and  agricul- 
tural machinery,  contain  a  printing  office,  a 
rug  factory,  and  other  features  of  an  indus- 
trial home,  with  a  very  limited  farming  equip- 
ment crowded  into  one  side  of  the  large  barn. 
Along  one  side  of  the  Colony  runs  a  country 
road  with  an  interurban  street  car  line,  and 

190 


THREE  WAYS  FROM  WHISKEY 

on  the  side  of  the  terrace  overlooking  this  road, 
where  all  passers  may  see,  the  words  "Self- 
Master  Colony"  are  embroidered  in  cobble- 
stones. On  two  other  terraces  in  other  parts 
of  the  grounds  the  same  legend  appears,  also 
crocheted  in  cobbles,  Self-Master!  This  one 
idea  is  branded  all  over  the  place,  which  is  a 
strangely  unconventional  home  for  men  who 
from  whatever  cause  have  lost  their  grip,  and 
want  to  get  their  hands  back  on  the  rope.  As 
whiskey  is  the  greatest  grip-loosener  known  to 
civilization,  the  most  of  the  men  at  the  Colony 
are  alcoholics. 

The  presiding  genius  is  a  man  named  An- 
dress  Floyd,  but  there  is  an  assistant  genius 
of  great  importance,  Lillian  Blanche  Floyd, 
who  is  his  wife.  The  Floyds  are  young.  An- 
dress  was  born  in  New  England,  but  for  all 
that  is  a  Greek  mystic.  A  few  years  ago  he 
was  a  Wall  Street  broker  picking  up  hundreds 
of  thousands  on  a  turn  of  the  wheel,  but  the 
wheel  turned  once  too  often  and  he  lost — lost 
every  dollar — lost  even  every  interest  in  mak- 
ing dollars.  Since  that  he  has  devoted  himself 

191 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

to  picking  up  men  after  the  very  strange 
principle  embodied  in  the  Self-Master  Col- 
ony. 

The  idea  is:  master  yourself.  But  Floyd 
doesn't  preach  it  to  the  alcoholics  and  drug 
fiends  and  other  pieces  of  human  debris  who  in- 
habit his  home,  in  fact  says  scarcely  a  word 
about  it.  Rather,  he  tries  to  live  it,  and  de- 
pends upon  the  intangible  influence  of  his  own 
calm  self -controlled  life  to  breed  a  spirit  of 
self-mastery  among  the  forty  men  his  home 
can  accommodate.  He  is  the  Self -Master! 

Across  the  road  from  the  Colony  is  Riley's — 
a  typical  country  saloon.  Riley's  and  the  man- 
sion are  antipodal  institutions,  they  ogle  each 
other  truculently.  Between  them  is  a  great 
gulf  fixed.  Men  stand  uncertainly  in  the  door 
of  Riley's  and  look  across  at  the  colonial  man- 
sion as  into  a  quiet  side  park  of  Heaven.  Men 
sit  on  the  lawn  of  the  Colony  and  gaze  back  at 
Riley's  as  into  the  "hole  of  the  pit  whence  they 
were  digged." 

To  the  inmates  of  the  Colony,  Riley's  is  a 
sort  of  testing  machine.  If  a  man  can  sit  on 

192 


the  Colony  well-curb  and  look  at  Riley's  indif- 
ferently— as  if  it  were  an  undertaker's  shop, 
for  instance, — he  is  getting  along.  If,  on  the 
contrary,  at  the  squeak  and  pouf  of  these 
swinging  doors  he  wets  his  lips  and  shades  his 
eyes  in  an  endeavor  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  the 
forms  at  the  bar, — why  his  reform  is  in  no  very 
prosperous  state. 

All  of  which  is  in  accord  with  the  Self -Master 
idea.  Indeed,  while  poor  weak  men  are  con- 
tinually taking  things  from  the  Colony — rugs, 
tables,  blankets,  anything  at  all  portable  and 
negotiable — and  exchanging  them  for  drinks  at 
Riley's — I  do  not  know  that  Mr.  Floyd  would 
like  Riley  to  move  away.  The  men  have  to 
learn  to  face  the  temptation  of  the  roadside  sa- 
loon when  they  go  out.  It  is  perhaps  well  for 
them  to  practice  on  Riley's,  which  thus,  all  un- 
wittingly, becomes  a  part  of  the  Colony  teach- 
ing apparatus. 

About  two  years  ago  a  rather  thick-set  man 
with  dark  eyes  and  coal-black  hair  lightly 
streaked  with  gray,  stood  in  the  door  of  Riley's, 
looking  at  the  Colony.  Broadly  speaking  he 

193 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

had  been  drunk  for  ten  years.  The  name  of 
this  man  was  Lang — Arthur  Lang.  He  was 
an  alumnus  of  Princeton  University.  Ten 
years  after  graduation  he  had  a  salary  of  five 
thousand  dollars  a  year,  and  savings  of  ten 
thousand,  besides  a  charming  wife  and  two  at- 
tractive children.  But  now,  twenty  years 
after,  he  did  not  own  a  toothbrush,  was  unable 
to  hold  a  job  of  any  kind,  and  had  not  seen  his 
wife  or  children  in  years,  although  he  often 
slunk  craven-heartedly  through  the  streets  of 
the  city  in  which  they  lived.  Worst  of  all  there 
was  a  stubborn  streak  in  Lang's  character 
which  had  prevented  him  from  trying  to  re- 
form. One  way  and  another  he  got  into  va- 
rious institutions  for  the  treatment  of  alco- 
holics, usually  through  the  sentence  of  a  police 
judge,  but  their  small  restraints  irked  him  into 
a  state  of  rebellion  which  made  beneficial  re- 
sults impossible.  Finally  judges,  court  offi- 
cers and  social  workers  ceased  their  efforts  to 
reform  him,  giving  the  man  up  as  just  one 
more  derelict,  stranded  on  the  shores  of  in- 
curable alcoholism.  Lang  noticed  this  cessa- 

194, 


THREE  WAYS  FROM  WHISKEY 

tion  of  interest  in  his  behalf  and  it  provoked 
his  obstinacy.  He  began  to  consider  that  he 
might  reform  on  his  own  account  if  he  chose. 
While  in  this  mood  and  entirely  of  his  own  voli- 
tion he  started  for  the  Colony,  but  from  the 
Nebo  of  Riley's  paused  to  spy  out  the  land. 
The  Colony  had  a  very  thirsty  look  to  him,  and 
he  fell  back  often  upon  the  bar  for  refreshment 
and  encouragement.  But  by  the  time  his  last 
dime  was  gone  his  resolution  had  reached  the 
sticking  point  and  he  moved  unsteadily  across 
the  way  and  executed  a  detour  which  landed 
him  at  the  back  door  of  the  institution. 

It  was  near  the  close  of  the  day.  The  odor 
of  coffee  and  hearty  food  was  coming  from  the 
kitchen.  A  half  dozen  men  were  washing 
about  a  well  that  stood  in  the  yard.  Others 
were  coming  in  from  the  fields  and  issuing  from 
the  doors  of  the  printing  shop  and  the  rug  fac- 
tory. The  drunkard  was  struck  with  the  air 
of  quiet  orderliness  that  prevailed.  Everybody 
seemed  contented.  Also,  everybody  seemed  to 
have  been  at  work. 

"Sit  down,"  said  one  of  the  men,  motioning 
195 


to  the  steps  leading  to  the  kitchen.  "Supper '11 
be  ready  soon." 

Presently  a  man  came  out  of  the  rear  en- 
trance to  the  mansion,  strolled  past  the  kitchen 
door  and  stopped  among  the  men  who  had 
gathered  in  groups  as  the  supper  hour  ap- 
proached. The  newcomer  was  tall,  clean 
shaven  and  almost  dapper  looking,  with  small 
hazel  eyes  and  plenty  of  chestnut  hair.  He 
wore  a  closely  buttoned  brown  frock  coat,  a 
large  fedora  hat,  also  brown,  and  carried  him- 
self with  a  certain  reserve,  yet  at  the  same  time 
was  scrupulously  cordial.  Lang,  reading  him 
quickly  with  the  suspicious  eye  of  the  alcoholic, 
decided  that  this  was  the  boss — the  supreme 
Self -Master,  Mr.  Floyd,  of  whom  he  had  been 
hearing  at  Riley's.  Presently  Mr.  Floyd 
greeted  him,  kindly  but  casually,  although 
Lang  had  a  feeling  that  he  was  being  looked 
over  rather  carefully. 

The  supper  was  a  generous  meal.  There 
were  three  tables  in  three  rooms  and  Lang 
learned  that  these  tables  differed  in  degree  of 
respectability  and  that  men  were  promoted  or 

196 


THREE  WAYS  FROM  WHISKEY 

demoted  from  table  to  table  according  to  con- 
duct. At  the  first  table  in  an  inner  room  Lang 
was  permitted  a  glimpse  of  the  most  advanced 
members  of  the  Colony,  with  Mr.  Floyd  sitting 
at  the  head  and  Mrs.  Floyd  at  the  foot.  Lang 
resolved  that  if  they  admitted  him  to  the  Col- 
ony he  would  do  just  about  anything  if 
it  could  win  him  the  privilege  of  sitting  down 
once  more  at  a  table  like  that  with  a  gentleman 
at  the  head  of  it  and  lady  at  the  foot.  At  the 
close  of  the  meal  the  cook  approached  him, 
pointed  to  a  scrubbing  brush  and  a  bucket  of 
water,  and  said — 

"If  you  want  to,  you  can  scrub  the  kitchen 
floor." 

The  kitchen  in  which  food  is  cooked  for 
forty  men  and  one-half  of  which  is  used  as  a 
third  degree  dining  table,  is  likely  to  need  con- 
siderable scrubbing.  Lang  had  never  done 
work  so  menial  as  this.  An  hour  before  the 
cook  would  have  got  the  scrubbing  brush  in 
his  face  for  such  a  suggestion — but  some 
subtlety  in  the  atmosphere  of  the  Colony  was 
percolating  into  Lang's  stubborn  soul.  Any- 

197 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

way  the  cook  had  said  ffif  you  want  to,"  and 
Lang  had  somehow  a  feeling  that  he  wanted  to. 
Besides,  it  was  worth  a  week's  work  of  any  kind 
to  be  treated  as  he  had  been  for  the  last  hour, 
not  as  a  freak,  or  a  social  derelict,  but  as  a  man. 
Moreover,  he  had  gleaned  from  the  table-talk 
that  the  cook,  who  had  been  an  awful  "souse," 
was  now  four  months  from  Riley's.  Lang 
looked  at  him  with  awe,  and  wondered  if  he 
himself  would  ever  be  "four  months  from 
Riley's."  He  thought  if  he  scrubbed  the  floor 
and  watched  the  cook  closely  he  might  learn 
something  of  the  secret  of  self-mastery.  So  he 
took  the  brush  and  attacked  the  floor,  making 
as  long  a  job  of  it  as  possible,  and  as  thorough. 

After  breakfast  the  next  morning,  despite 
two  good  meals  and  a  night's  sleep,  the  new- 
comer was  in  a  highly  nervous  condition.  The 
other  men  went  to  their  tasks ;  but  he,  having 
none  and  no  strength  left  for  one,  now  that  the 
effects  of  yesterday's  whiskey  had  worn  off, 
sat  weakly  on  the  well-curb  and  gazed  towards 
Riley's.  In  the  most  casual  manner  imagina- 
ble Mr.  Floyd,  looking  thoroughly  immaculate 

198 


THREE  WAYS  FROM  WHISKEY 

and  more  the  Self-Master  than  ever,  sauntered 
out  of  the  house  and  asked  Lang  if  he  wished 
to  remain  at  the  Colony.  Lang,  although 
wishing  more  than  anything  else  in  the  world 
at  the  moment  to  be  leaning  up  against  Riley's 
bar,  could  not  find  it  in  his  heart  to  seem  unap- 
preciative  and  replied  that  he  would.  Mr. 
Floyd  then  told  him  that  he  was  welcome  to 
stay  as  long  as  he  wished,  which  seemed  very 
nice,  but  also  assured  him  that  he  was  at  liberty 
to  leave  whenever  he  chose  to  do  so,  there  being 
no  restraints  upon  him  whatever ;  that  the  place 
was  just  a  home  for  any  man  who  needed  one, 
a  place  where  he  would  be  treated  in  a  kind, 
self-respecting  way ;  being  expected  to  do  some 
regular  work  for  which  he  would  be  paid  a 
small  wage,  and  to  bear  a  mutual  share  in  the 
life  of  the  home.  As  long  as  a  man  toted  fair 
he  would  be  permitted  to  remain;  when  he 
ceased  to  do  so  he  would  be  compelled  to  go. 

Compelled  to  go!  Permitted  to  remain! 
To  Lang  these  were  startlingly  new  ideas, 
when  related  to  a  home  for  inebriates.  He  had 
been  sentenced  to  such  institutions  in  the  past. 

199 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

This  was  decidedly  different.  He  made  up 
his  mind  instantly  to  stay — provided  he  could 
only  sneak  across  to  Riley's  and  get  one  more 
drink. 

"Take  a  rest  to-day,  and  I  will  assign  you 
to  work  in  the  morning,"  said  Mr.  Floyd,  mov- 
ing off.  "By  the  way,  Lang,"  he  added,  "if 
you  happen  to  want  a  drink  and  think  you 
ought  to  have  it,  go  to  Mrs.  Floyd  and  she  will 
give  it  to  you." 

Lang  stared  in  amazement.  He  was  so  sur- 
prised that  he  almost  fell  in  the  well,  but  lost  no 
time  in  inquiring  where  Mrs.  Floyd  might  be 
found.  He  got  the  drink.  It  was  not  ex- 
actly dispensed  with  alacrity,  but — he  got  it — 
and  knew  if  the  case  became  urgent  with  him 
he  might  get  another.  But  this  very  thing  of 
putting  the  final  decision  up  to  himself  begot 
a  powerful  impulse  to  self-mastery.  In  fact 
the  whole  programme  of  the  day  at  the  Colony 
was  one  long  provocation  to  self-mastery.  He 
could  stay  or  go — scrub  the  floor  or  not — take 
one  necessary  drink  or  not — self! — it  was  up 
to  self,  an  appeal  to  self  all  the  way  along.  If 

200 


THREE  WAYS  FROM  WHISKEY 

he  did  not  scrub,  he  reasoned  he  might  not  be 
invited  to  breakfast — self;  if  he  took  too  many 
drinks  he  would  be  drunk — self;  if  he  got  drunk 
they  would  expel  him  from  the  Colony — self, 
again.  True  this  same  appeal  to  self  had  co- 
existed during  all  his  drinking  career,  but  not 
with  such  simple  force.  They  had  arranged 
it  in  the  Colony  with  the  simplicity  of  a  kinder- 
garten game.  Every  reaction  was  in  plain 
sight — was  sure  and  automatic — punishments 
were  clearly  self-inflicted  and  rewards  were 
plainly  self-administered. 

In  the  first  week  or  ten  days  Lang  suffered 
greatly  from  weakness  and  nervous  attacks. 
When  he  felt  that  he  could  no  longer  keep  from 
going  to  Riley's,  he  sought  Mrs.  Floyd,  but 
after  two  weeks  he  was  able  to  fight  through 
the  day  entirely  without  liquor.  There  were 
many  things  to  inspire  or  goad  him.  In  the 
first  place  there  was  the  Self-Master  himself, 
Mr.  Floyd,  moving  in  and  out  among  the  men, 
with  plenty  of  things  to  vex  him,  with  frequent 
incidents  that  might  throw  him  out  of  balance, 
a  responsible  caretaker  who,  having  no  re- 

201 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

sources  to  provide  for  all  these  child-men  ex- 
cept the  small  profits  from  the  sale  of  rugs  and 
such  like,  together  with  donations  as  came  in 
from  the  outside,  yet  never  lost  his  patience  or 
his  poise. 

Association  with  the  men  in  the  Colony,  some 
of  whom  were  winning  their  battles  and  some 
of  whom  were  losing,  also  served  to  deepen 
Lang's  resolve.  But  the  greatest  spur  of  all 
came  from  the  constant  procession  of  helpless 
wrecks  which  appeared  daily  at  the  back  door 
as  he  had  come.  Each  of  these  was  given  food 
and  a  kind  word;  but  not  one  in  ten  could  be 
received  because  the  home  was  already  full  to 
overflowing.  Lang  knew  what  it  meant  to 
wander  homeless  and  houseless  upon  the  high- 
roads in  all  kinds  of  weather.  He  did  not 
want  to  slip  back  into  the  hopeless  ways  of  a 
drunkard  again,  and  above  all  he  did  not  wish 
to  do  anything  which  might  cause  Mr.  Floyd 
to  cast  him  out  of  his  comfortable  home. 

As  the  weeks  slipped  along  it  became  easier 
to  control  his  appetite.  At  the  end  of  six 
months  he  felt  that  he  had  conquered.  He 

202 


THREE  WAYS  FROM  WHISKEY 

could  look  across  at  Riley's  and  laugh  and 
snap  his  fingers.  Still  he  felt  a  peculiar  re- 
luctance to  leave  the  home  and  try  himself  in 
the  world  again.  Although  now  a  self -master 
so  far  as  liquor  and  some  other  bad  habits  were 
concerned,  he  clung  by  every  instinct  to  the 
home  which  had  been  such  a  haven  to  his  ship- 
wrecked life.  He  lacked  confidence.  His 
brain  had  so  long  been  bred  to  alcohol  that  he 
found  it  difficult  to  trust  its  sober  processes. 
But  fortunately  an  incident  occurred  which 
greatly  renewed  his  faith  in  himself. 

This  came  through  a  visit  of  Mr.  Colby,  a 
brother  of  Bainbridge  Colby,  to  Mr.  Floyd,  of 
whom  he  is  very  fond.  The  visitor  saw  a  man 
at  the  home  engaged  in  a  lonely  game  of  chess 
with  himself,  and  being  one  of  the  crack  chess 
players  of  the  country  he  good-humoredly 
dropped  down  at  the  other  side  of  the  table  and 
began  to  play,  at  the  same  time  looking  off 
round  the  room,  talking  to  Mr.  Floyd  and 
letting  his  mind  flit  over  a  variety  of  subjects. 
But  after  a  time  the  situation  on  the  board  ab- 
ruptly claimed  him.  Scrutinizing  keenly  the 

203 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

face  of  his  opponent  at  whom  he  had  barely 
glanced  before,  he  concentrated  all  his  atten- 
tion upon  the  pawns,  forgetting  Mr.  Floyd, 
the  home  and  all  the  surroundings,  until  he  had 
won  the  game. 

The  lonely  chess  player  was  Lang.  He  had 
been  beaten,  but  by  a  champion.  The  glow 
of  victory  was  in  his  heart.  If  he  could  make 
Mr.  Colby  extend  himself  to  win  a  chess 
game,  he  guessed  he  was  pretty  good  himself, 
all  right,  all  right.  The  next  day  he  left  the 
Colony,  a  graduate.  Unwilling,  however,  to 
undertake  the  nerve-strung  work  of  a  sales- 
man, which  was  the  work  in  which  his  successes 
had  been  made,  he  obtained  a  clerical  position 
in  a  great  manufacturing  company  where  he 
was  just  one  among  ten  thousand  employes, 
whose  personality  was  entirely  unknown  and 
unappraised,  where  the  holding  of  his  position 
depended  solely  upon  his  ability  to  do  the  work 
required  of  him.  His  wages  were  sixteen  dol- 
lars a  week.  He  lived  frugally.  The  first 
sixty  dollars  which  he  saved  was  applied  to  the 
repayment  of  sixty  dollars  of  the  expense 

204 


THREE  WAYS  FROM  WHISKEY 

money  of  a  firm  by  which  he  was  employed  and 
which  he  had  wrongfully  used  while  on  a  de- 
bauch. Thereafter  he  began  to  recall  all  the 
old  friends  and  acquaintances  from  whom  he 
had  borrowed  dollars  and  halves  and  quarters 
during  his  drinking  days  and  to  return  these 
small  amounts.  As  far  as  he  can  remember 
this  has  now  been  done.  His  wages  have  been 
increased  to  twenty-one  dollars  per  week.  He 
has  money  in  the  bank,  he  is  in  correspondence 
with  his  wife  and  she  has  said  that  she  will  re- 
turn to  him  when  he  can  make  a  home  for  her. 
Lang  got  his  "kick"  at  the  Colony  in  that 
daily  and  hourly  dramatization  of  the  self- 
master  idea.  It  did  not  come  in  one  single 
shock,  but  in  a  succession  of  impulses  that  was 
like  the  blows  of  a  pneumatic  hammer. 

The  notable  thing  is  that  neither  of  these 
men  was  reformed  against  his  own  will.  Each 
achieved  it  by  getting  hold  of  some  principle  of 
self-mastery.  Happy  for  these  men,  a  con- 
siderable leaven  of  self  remained  in  each.  Al- 
coholism demoralizes  the  self,  and  disintegrates 

205 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

the  personality,  and  the  power  to  respond  to 
a  moral  kick,  however  administered,  must  be 
dependent  upon  the  amount  of  moral  force 
which  remains  undestroyed.  This  is  also  the 
experience  of  the  drug  cures  for  alcoholism. 
As  one  of  these  drug  administrants  puts  it — 
"There  must  be  some  man  left  to  work  upon." 
In  other  words,  the  man  who  comes  back  from 
whiskey,  by  whatever  road  he  travels,  in  addi- 
tion to  getting  his  moral  "kick,"  must,  in  the 
words  of  Billie  Johnson,  "have  a  little  sand 
left." 


206 


VII 

A   CHICAGO   WONDER-WOKKEB 

THE  hero  of  this  story  used  to  make  money — 
counterfeit  money.  Now  he  makes  men — real 
men — out  of  counterfeits,  frayed,  poorly  en- 
graved human  counterfeits.  Men  that  once 
were  something  and  now  are  nothing — but 
derelicts.  Men  that  once  were  ruddy-cheeked 
boys  whose  gravest  sin  was  that  they  raided  the 
dough-nut  jar  and  the  jam-pot;  yet  boys  who 
have  grown  up  to  be  wolves  and  sharks  who 
prey  upon  society.  Though  grown  they  have 
remained  children — children  of  crime — for 
psychologically  your  average  criminal  is  often 
not  an  average  man  but  an  average  child  grown 
old  without  growing  up.  They  are  not  so 
much  a  cold,  plotting  sort,  as  folk  who  lead 
felonious  lives  by  first  intention,  without  think- 
ing, without  planning,  but  a  sort  of  instinct. 
As  naturally  as  you  when  hungry,  reach  out 

207 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

and  pluck  an  apple,  they  reach  out  and  pluck 
a  pocket-book  or  a  diamond  pin,  or  stand  a 
man  up  in  a  dark  corner  and  harvest  him  like 
a  crop. 

With  many  of  these  there  comes  a  time  when 
they  grow  stale  on  life  as  they  know  it.  They 
get  tired  and  sick  of  being  the  hunted,  cheated 
creatures  of  the  underworld.  Usually  this  is 
after  a  term  in  prison  or  a  debauch  on  rum  or 
drugs.  Then  they  think  of  trying  to  play  the 
game  square.  If  at  such  a  time  they  happen 
into  the  Pacific  Garden  Mission  on  Van  Buren 
Street  in  Chicago,  they  will  meet  a  man  who 
knows  how  to  help  them  for  he  has  been  over 
the  route  himself. 

For  thirty-two  year's  he  has  been  a  co-worker 
in  the  mission  and  conducted  a  jolly — yes, 
that  is  the  term — a  jolly  evangelistic  meeting. 
For  years  he  has  gone  upon  the  streets  to  talk 
and  sing  his  message  of  hope  for  the  despairing. 
Wonderful  things  have  happened  to  this  little 
man  who,  with  a  cap  and  apron,  would  pass  for 
your  typical  jolly  inn-keeper  of  French  fiction. 
But  no  Frenchman,  he!  Ireland  was  the 

208 


A  CHICAGO  WONDER-WORKER 

heath  of  his  fathers.  New  Hampshire  is  his 
own  birthplace;  but,  he  will  tell  you  he  was 
born  again  in  the  Mission  on  Van  Buren 
Street.  And,  as  I  said,  wonders  have  befallen 
him  during  his  ministry  there. 

One  day  on  State  Street,  he  was  talking  to 
a  crowd  of  sporty  looking  young  men.  Sud- 
denly one  of  them  sat  down  upon  the  curb  and 
began  to  look  very  serious.  That  young  man 
was  "Billy"  Sunday,  the  famous  right-fielder 
of  the  White  Sox.  That  night  Billy  Sunday 
came  to  the  little  mission  and  Mrs.  Clark 
talked  with  him.  That  talk  changed  Billy 
Sunday  from  a  roistering  ball  player  to  a  flam- 
ing evangel  of  righteousness  who  for  two  dec- 
ades and  more  has  gone  up  and  down  the  land 
smiting  sin  after  his  peculiar  fashion. 

One  night  "Mel"  Trotter,  a  drunken  barber, 
staggered  into  Pacific  Garden  Mission.  Harry 
Monroe  had  words  with  him  too;  told  him  to 
get  "down  on  his  knees  and  do  business  with 
God."  Had  you  heard  of  "Mel"  Trotter? 
Perhaps  not,  because  he  works  among  fallen 
men.  That  is  his  specialty.  "Mel"  Trotter 

209 


is  the  greatest  evangelist  of  his  times  to  drunk- 
ards. Trotter  goes  to  the  drunkard  and  tells 
him  to  hope ;  helps  him  to  hope ;  prays  with  him, 
talks  with  him,  works  with  him  till  he  has  got 
a  new  bone  in  his  back,  and  a  new  will  in  his 
heart.  Besides  Trotter  has  a  genius  for  or- 
ganization. He  is  the  typical  ideal  rescue  mis- 
sion man;  but  he  has  syndicated  himself.  He 
lives  in  Grand  Rapids  and  conducts  a  rescue 
mission  there;  but  he  superintends  a  chain  of 
rescue  missions  that  extends  from  Boston  to 
San  Francisco.  There  are  more  than  thirty 
of  these  in  all,  a  chain  of  life-saving  stations  on 
the  shores  of  that  vast  ocean  of  hopelessness  on 
which  the  souls  of  men  in  the  grasp  of  drug 
habits  and  drink  habits  toss  helplessly  to  and 
fro.  And  this  "Mel"  Trotter,  captain  of  all 
these  life-saving  crews  who  annually  drag  thou- 
sands of  men  from  liquory  graves,  staggered  a 
drunken  bum  into  Harry  Monroe's  mission  in 
Chicago  only  a  few  years  ago. 

But  you  say,  these  must  be  exceptional  cases. 
They  do  not  impress  you.  Ah !  but  they  should 
impress  you.  They  are  doing  it  every  night 

210 


A  CHICAGO  WONDER-WORKER 

in  the  year  at  Pacific  Garden  Mission,  and  have 
been  for  thirty-six  years.  For  twenty  of  those 
years  Harry  Monroe  has  been  assistant  su- 
perintendent. The  little  mission  saved  him. 
Now  he  through  the  mission  by  the  power  of 
his  Gospel  saves  thousands  of  others.  In  those 
thirty-six  years,  more  than  one  hundred  thou- 
sand men  and  women  have  knelt  at  its  penitent 
forms.  Men  have  been  reformed  from  drink, 
from  drugs,  from  stealing,  from  every  crime 
known  to  the  calendar.  Women,  too,  soiled 
and  bedraggled  women,  out  of  the  gutters  of 
that  great  city,  as  presently  you  shall  see,  have 
come  in  despairing  and  have  gone  out  to  hope 
and  to  win  their  way  back  to  character. 

Let  me  show  you  a  typical  criminal  whose 
heart  was  touched  in  the  mission.  He  sat  at 
dinner  with  me  in  a  restaurant  over  on  the 
North  Side.  This  young  man  had  spent 
seventeen  years  of  his  life  in  penitentiaries; 
four  separate  terms  in  four  separate  states.  A 
drunken  father  had  sent  him  early  from  his 
home  in  Pennsylvania.  Bad  associations  had 
the  usual  effect.  He  hit  a  man  in  the  head  on 

211 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

State  Street  one  day  with  a  billie — hit  him 
hard.  The  Judge  gave  him  ninety  days  in  the 
Bridewell.  While  there,  the  associate  of  crimi- 
nals, he  decided  to  learn  to  be  a  crook.  He 
devoted  himself  to  mastering  the  technique  of 
thievery.  Instructors  were  all  about  him. 
When  he  came  out  he  began  as  a  "moll-buzzer," 
which,  you  understand,  means  pick-pocket  who 
specializes  on  the  fair  sex;  he  buzzes  the 
"molls."  That  was  the  beginning  only.  The 
man  did  not  know  fear,  and  does  not  yet.  No 
man,  no  prison  has  ever  cowed  him.  He  has 
never  been  on  his  knees  except  to  God.  He 
and  a  pal  held  up  a  train.  Detectives  found 
him  with  thousands  of  dollars  in  his  possession. 
He  could  not  explain  its  presence.  His  pal 
got  away.  My  dinner  guest  was  no  squealer. 
He  took  his  medicine.  By  the  time  he  came 
out  of  prison  he  had  devised  another  specialty. 
It  provided  him  with  easy  money.  It  had  one 
disadvantage.  It  landed  him  in  prison  about 
once  a  year  for  a  three  or  four  year  term. 
Once  he  was  out  thirteen  months.  He  began 
to  think  his  luck  had  turned;  but  no,  he  went 

212 


A  CHICAGO  WONDER-WORKER 

back  again.  Each  term  in  prison  hardened 
him  more.  In  an  eastern  prison  he  stood  by 
and  saw  a  convict  beat  a  hated  guard  to  death. 
The  convict,  standing  in  wait  behind  the  door, 
invited  him  to  join.  He  declined.  The  guard, 
sinking  under  the  blows,  appealed  to  him  for 
help.  This  he  also  declined.  He  saw  the  con- 
vict murderer  go  to  the  death-cell.  He  saw 
him  march  past  to  the  death  chamber.  He 
heard  the  trap  fall.  And  he  felt  all  this 
keenly.  The  criminal  is  not  the  least  sensitive 
of  men.  He  is  one  of  the  most  sensitive.  He 
is  all  feelings.  On  the  intellectual  side  his 
mental  processes  are  primary,  and  more  in- 
stinctive than  intellectual.  But  my  convict 
friend's  fortunes  grew  harder.  They  had  to 
shoot  him  once  to  capture  him,  and  they  did  it 
unhesitatingly.  He  thought  he  had  knocked 
the  policeman  senseless  but  he  was  mistaken. 
Shouts  and  then  shots  came  after  him.  One 
bullet  passed  into  his  leg,  and  he  kept  on  going. 
Another  crashed  into  the  bones  of  his  back, 
and  he  fell. 

Seventeen  months  ago  he  strayed  into  the 
213 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

Pacific  Garden  Mission.  He  heard  Harry 
Monroe  talk.  He  heard  the  triumphant  re- 
citals of  men  he  had  known  in  prison.  Harry 
Monroe  got  his  wise  hand  on  his  shoulder,  he 
got  the  love  of  his  Saviour  into  the  man's  heart. 
Ever  since  the  man  has  lived  a  straight  life. 
He  has  not  made  any  great  success  of  it. 
Things  in  his  past  have  constitutionally  un- 
fitted him  for  steady  employment;  but  he  is 
overcoming  these.  He  is  at  work  now  as  a 
clerk.  I  heard  him  stand  up  in  a  little  North 
Side  mission  and  tell  his  story  unfaltering, 
facing  a  group  of  men  who,  like  himself,  had 
just  come  out  of  Bridewell,  and  assure  them  it 
was  not  society  but  themselves  who  were  at 
fault. 

Do  you  think  it  is  easy  for  such  a  man  to 
walk  the  streets,  sometimes  without  a  dollar 
in  his  pocket,  when  he  knows  how  to  go  out 
and  gather  a  handful  in  an  hour?  No,  it  is 
not  easy;  but  he  has  his  face  set  right.  He 
never  was  a  "squealer"  or  a  "quitter,"  and  his 
friends  can  see  that  he  is  slowly  winning. 

But  it  was  Harry  Monroe  I  started  to  tell 
214 


A  CHICAGO  WONDER-WORKER 

you  about.  He  is  a  modest,  self-effacing  little 
man,  round  as  a  ball,  bald  on  the  top  of  him, 
puffy  in  the  throat,  and  leaning  back  when  he 
stands  to  counterbalance  an  over- fullness  in  his 
front.  His  features  are  smooth  except  for 
black  brows  that  look  like  fur  patches  on  his 
face.  Under  these  brows  are  eyes — eyes  so 
small  and  set  in  a  face  so  fat  that  they  disap- 
pear when  he  smiles  or  speaks  vehemently.  As 
I  told  you,  too,  he  once  made  queer  money ;  but 
he  stopped  this  for  very  imperative  reasons. 
In  the  late  80's  he  returned  again  to  his  old 
haunts,  the  streets  of  Chicago.  He  was  a 
young,  round-headed,  hard-shouldered  tough 
who  fought  and  roistered  his  way  up  and  down 
Clark  Street  and  in  and  out  of  the  saloons  on 
Whiskey  Row.  In  his  own  words,  spoken 
quickly  and  with  slight  emphasis  on  the  adjec- 
tive: "I  was  a  crooked  man."  Yes,  he  was  a 
crooked  man  in  what  he  cynically  believed  was 
a  crooked  world. 

Those  were  the  days  when  Mike  McDonald 
and  George  Hankins  were  the  king  pin  gam- 
blers of  Chicago.  Mike's  place  was  "The 

215 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

Store,"  over  a  saloon  at  the  corner  of  Clark 
and  Monroe  Streets.  Hankins'  lay-out  was 
near  the  corner  of  Clark  and  Madison  Streets. 
These  two  places  became  the  North  and  South 
poles  of  young  Monroe's  life.  He  vibrated 
between  them.  He  drew  sustenance  from 
each.  Faro,  roulette,  poker,  monte,  rouge  et 
noir,  every  device  ever  used  to  take  money  from 
the  padded  pocket  of  cow-punchers,  lumber- 
jacks, sailors  or  miners  who  drifted  into  Chi- 
cago to  see  the  world  and  have  a  good  time, 
was  there.  One  of  the  most  skilful  assistants 
in  relieving  these  various  brands  of  sports  of 
their  money  was  Harry  Monroe.  He  will  ad- 
mit that  he  made  bad  money  and  passed  it  for 
good;  that  he  stood  men  up  in  dark  corners 
and  took  their  money  away  from  them;  he  will 
admit  that  he  was  a  hanger-on  at  McDonald's 
and  Hankins'  places ;  that  he  was  a  capper  and 
a  steerer  for  their  games;  that  when  a  sucker 
was  to  be  skinned  he  did  the  job  and  did  it 
"proper." 

But  to-day  Harry  Monroe  is  one  of  the  most 
respected  citizens  of  Chicago.     The  great  men 

216 


A  CHICAGO  WONDER-WORKER 

of  that  great  city  respect  him;  they  delight  to 
honor  him  with  their  friendship  and  their  con- 
fidence. He  is  a  soft-spoken  courteous  gentle- 
man who  shrinks  from  notoriety;  and  yet  is 
willing  that  his  story,  commonly  known  in 
Chicago,  may  be  widely  known  in  the  nation, 
for  the  sake  of  the  hope  and  inspiration  it  may 
be  alike  to  men  who  are  down  and  want  to  get 
up  and  to  the  kindly  hearted  who  would  help 
them  up  if  they  only  knew  how.  One  of  the 
lecture  bureaus  offered  Monroe  a  flattering 
sum  to  lecture  for  unnumbered  nights.  He 
has  a  family,  a  devoted  wife  and  charming  chil- 
dren who  are  preparing  themselves  for  a  place 
in  the  world.  That  lecture  income  would  be 
wealth  to  them  and  to  him.  Yet  he  declined  it. 
It  might  center  his  thought  upon  himself  in- 
stead of  upon  the  love  of  Christ.  So  he  toils 
steadily  in  the  mission  from  one  week's  end 
to  the  other  for  the  good  of  others,  and  delights 
to  see  other  men  wrought  upon  as  he  himself 
was  wrought  upon  by  the  spirit  of  hope  from  on 
high. 

Now,  by  the  way,  Pacific  Garden  Mission 
217 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

itself  is  a  reformed  institution.  Forty  years 
ago  it  was  the  Pacific  Garden,  a  beer  hall,  and 
one  of  the  worst.  But  Chicago,  in  those  days, 
as  now,  had  eminent  citizens  who  were  both 
far-seeing  and  unselfish.  One  of  those  was 
Colonel  George  R.  Clark.  He  was  the  first 
man  in  Chicago  to  go  into  the  real  estate 
business  in  a  large  way,  that  process  of  laying 
out  new  additions,  which  at  one  time  threatened 
to  bring  all  of  northern  Illinois  into  the  city 
of  Chicago.  Something  caused  the  owner  of 
Pacific  Garden  to  move.  Colonel  Clark  in- 
stantly leased  the  place  and  put  up  the  word 
"Mission"  on  the  old  beer  hall  sign,  leaving 
the  rest  of  the  name  standing  as  it  was.  As- 
sociated with  him  in  this  work  was  his  frail 
little  wife,  Sarah  D.  Clark.  For  thirty-five 
years,  summer  and  winter,  from  Sunday  night 
to  Saturday  night,  it  is  said  that  this  little 
woman,  in  the  day  of  her  wealth  and  in  the  day 
when  most  of  it  was  gone,  never  failed  to  be  in 
the  Mission  at  night,  working  and  testifying, 
— I  almost  wrote  "exhorting,"  but  they  do  not 
exhort  at  this  mission — to  the  scores  of  broken 

218 


A  CHICAGO  WONDER-WORKER 

men  and  women  who  now,  for  more  than  a 
generation  have  streamed  through  that  door- 
way to  sit  in  the  grimy  chairs  with  sodden,  un- 
stirred minds,  or  sink  upon  the  beer-soaked 
floors  of  the  old  Garden  and  moan  out  the  de- 
sire of  their  wretched  hearts  for  better  things. 
In  the  winter  of  1880  drink  and  prosperity 
were  killing  Harry  Monroe.  The  "rubes"  and 
the  "hayseeds"  were  easy.  He  gathered  their 
rolls  off  from  them  as  the  farmers  out  in  the 
state  gathered  corn,  and  he  spent  it  as  fast  as 
he  gathered  it.  Whatever  else  he  bought,  he 
always  got  whiskey.  Whiskey,  whiskey,  whis- 
key! until  he  was  a  mere  ambling  barrel  of  the 
stuff.  Yet  no  man  who  is  going  down — and 
Harry  Monroe  was  going  down — ever  plunges 
so  swiftly  that  there  is  not  a  pause  of  some  sort 
on  the  final  brink  of  the  abyss.  Such  a  pause 
came  to  Monroe.  He  was  at  the  end  of  a  big 
spree.  But  a  few  nickels  remained  in  his 
pockets.  It  was  time  to  pull  himself  together 
for  another  killing.  The  hour  was  six  o'clock 
on  an  early  February  evening.  He  was  pick- 
ing his  way  through  Jim  Fitzsimmons'  place. 

219 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

It  was  full  of  sporting  people  of  both  sexes. 
They  were  moving  about  and  the  scene  made 
Harry  dizzy.  He  took  his  way  to  an  ever- 
green tree  at  the  back  and  sat  down.  A  glass 
of  beer  was  brought  to  him.  He  looked  into 
the  "suds,"  and  for  the  first  time  that  he  could 
remember,  there  was  no  desire  to  plunge  his 
lips  into  them.  He  was  thinking.  The  black, 
bushy  brows  stood  up  fiercely  on  his  face.  The 
black,  stubby  hair  stood  up  fiercely  on  his  head. 
He  only  shook  his  square  shoulders  impatiently 
and  banged  the  table  with  a  brawling  fist.  A 
moment  later  he  jumped  up  and  left  the  place 
— almost  ran  out  of  it — leaving  his  beer  un- 
touched. In  the  next  hour  he  was  in  half  a 
dozen  drinking  places,  but  could  not  drink. 
At  7:30  he  was  staggering  past  the  Pacific 
Garden  Mission  on  Van  Buren  Street.  He 
did  not  know  it  was  a  mission;  but  heard  the 
singing  and  was  attracted  by  it.  Lurching 
into  a  seat  he  stared  stupidly  around  him. 
Colonel  Clark  was  on  the  platform.  Monroe's 
brain  was  clear  enough  to  ask  himself,  "What 
is  that  fine  looking  gentlemen  doing  down 

220 


A  CHICAGO  WONDER-WORKER 

among  this  gang?"  Then  he  saw  a  little  lady 
moving  around  in  the  audience,  a  lady  who 
gave  every  indication  of  refinement.  The  little 
lady  was  Mrs.  Clark.  The  trembling  drunk- 
ard who  had  not  been  so  close  to  a  real  lady 
since  he  left  his  mother's  home  followed  her 
movements  with  open  mouth  and  bleared,  be- 
wildered eye.  There  were  worthless  bums 
there,  lower  than  himself;  men  whom  he  had 
kicked  out  of  his  way  time  out  of  mind.  She 
had  kind  words  for  them.  There  was  a  group 
of  women  huddled  in  a  corner,  looking  half 
timid,  half  brazen  and  altogether  miserable. 
He  knew  their  kind ;  he  knew  what  they  were ; 
he  even  knew  some  of  them  himself.  The  little 
woman  had  her  kind  word  for  them,  too. 

When  the  singing  stopped,  Colonel  Clark 
spoke  a  few  golden  words  and  the  testimonies 
began,  although  Monroe  did  not  know  what  to 
call  them.  He  listened  cynically  for  a  time, 
until  he  recognized  one  of  the  speakers.  When 
last  he  saw  that  man  he  was  shivering  in  the 
November  blasts,  without  a  shirt,  wearing  only 
a  thin  linen  coat,  and  he  would  have  sold  the 

221 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

coat  for  a  five  cent  drink  of  levee  whiskey. 
Now  the  man  wore  clean  clothes.  His  face 
was  shaven.  He  was  not  a  bum.  He  was  a 
man.  Monroe  gazed  at  him  in  a  sort  of  won- 
der. Later  there  were  other  testimonies  that 
set  him  thinking,  and  even  some  in  the  huddled 
group  of  women  stood  and  expressed  a  deter- 
mination to  lead  better  lives.  This  idea  of  a 
better  life  began  to  take  hold  on  Monroe's 
mind.  That  must  have  been  what  he  was 
thinking  about  when  he  turned  against  the  beer 
in  Jim  Fitzsimmons'  place.  As  the  meeting 
drew  to  a  close  Colonel  Clark  made  an  appeal 
for  men  to  be  prayed  for.  Monroe  raised  his 
hand,  but  almost  imperceptibly.  It  appears, 
however,  that  Colonel  Clark  had  been  watch- 
ing him.  Anyway  he  reached  his  side  almost 
instantly,  and  said:  "Young  man,  did  you 
raise  your  hand?"  Monroe  had  a  blunt,  sailor- 
ish  way  of  speaking. 

"Sir,  I  think  I  done  somethin',"  he  replied 
shortly.  Instantly  the  great-hearted  Colonel 
had  smothered  the  puffed,  trembling  hand  of 
the  poor  drunkard  in  both  of  his,  exclaiming: 

222 


A  CHICAGO  WONDER-WORKER 

"Young  man,  do  you  know  that  Jesus  loves  you 
and  so  do  I?" 

"That,"  said  Monroe,  in  telling  the  story  to 
me,  "that  was  the  thing  that  put  me  out  of 
business.  'Can  I  pray  with  you?'  says  he. 
Says  I,  'Yes,  sir.'  We  went  up  to  the  old 
mourner's  bench,  and  the  old  gentleman  began 
to  pray.  Well,  I  thought  prayer  was  a  mock- 
ery. I  prayed  because  he  asked  me  to  and  out 
of  respect  to  his  interest.  However,  this  is  a 
fact,  that  when  I  got  on  my  knees,  I  concluded 
that  it  was  the  right  thing  whether  any  result 
came  or  not.  It  was  cold-blooded ;  it  was  right 
to  be  there  whether  results  followed  or  whether 
they  did  not.  And  on  my  knees  that  night, 
I  promised  Him  that  if  he  would  help  me  I 
would  undertake  to  live  right.  I  didn't  have 
any  great  experience,  as  I  hear  people  talking 
about.  That  didn't  strike  me  at  all.  What  I 
got  was  just  the  determination  to  do  right  and 
the  conviction  that  God  would  help  me.  I  just 
said,  'Sir,  from  to-night  I  am  going  to  live 
right.' " 

And  now  let  the  writer  break  into  the  narra- 
223 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

tive  long  enough  to  say  that  this  absence  of 
any  mystical  experience,  is  rather  characteristic 
of  the  man's  religion  and  the  marvelous  work 
he  is  doing.  There  is  little  perspiration  about 
his  inspiration.  There  is  no  cant,  no  shouting 
of  shibboleths,  scarcely  any  fervor  even.  The 
tones  heard  in  Pacific  Garden  Mission  to-day 
under  his  leadership  are  the  tones  of  light- 
hearted  joy.  They  even  laugh  when  they 
pray,  and  they  think  God  laughs  too.  They 
quote  scripture  to  show  that  there  is  "rejoicing 
in  heaven"  when  a  sinner  kneels  at  the  penitent 
form  in  the  Mission,  and  they  reason  that  there 
cannot  be  much  rejoicing  without  laughter. 

But  there  was  no  laughter  in  the  soul  nor  on 
the  lips  of  Harry  Monroe  as  he  set  a  trembling 
foot  on  the  stony  cobbles  of  Van  Buren  Street 
that  night.  He  was  entering  upon  the  grim- 
mest fight  of  his  career.  The  hooks  of  hell 
had  hold  upon  him  that  night,  and  he  knew  it. 
He  got  a  room  in  a  lodging  house  but  he  dared 
not  go  to  bed.  The  thirst  for  drink  came  over 
him.  They  had  given  him  a  New  Testament 
at  the  mission.  All  night  he  sat  and  poured 

224 


A  CHICAGO  WONDER-WORKER 

over  that  Testament.  The  thirst  gripped 
harder,  and  he  read  and  prayed  the  harder. 
But  at  five  o'clock  in  the  morning  he  was  again 
upon  the  streets.  A  brewery  wagon  rumbled 
by.  Monroe  was  so  thirsty  that  he  wanted  to 
lick  the  dew  off  the  hoops  on  the  kegs.  He 
felt  that  if  Lake  Michigan  had  been  one  vast 
sea  of  foaming,  lathery  lager,  he  still  could 
have  drained  it  dry.  By  half  past  six  he  stood 
at  the  corner  of  Clark  and  Van  Buren  Streets, 
hesitating.  The  crisis  had  come.  He  was  de- 
bating in  his  mind  whether  he  would  take  a 
drink  or  not,  whether  all  that  had  transpired 
would  be  for  nothing.  The  very  quality  of  the 
wickedness  of  his  past  life  came  to  the  rescue. 
He  was  a  man  who  had  never  run  away  from 
a  fight.  He  had  always  gone  the  limit;  had 
got  what  he  went  after.  Twelve  hours  before 
he  had  started  after  a  sober  life,  and  now, 
though  all  the  pains  and  racks  of  alcoholic  thirst 
were  torturing  him,  he  would  not  be  defeated. 
To  himself  then  he  almost  shouted:  "No!  I 
am  going  to  stick!" 

And  he  did  stick.     The  battle  was  a  terri- 
225 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

ble  one.  It  lasted  six  or  seven  weeks;  but  he 
won,  and  from  telling  about  it  in  the  Mission 
to  becoming  Colonel  Clark's  Assistant  in  that 
work,  was  really  not  such  a  very  long  step,  con- 
sidering the  very  remarkable  talent  for  soul- 
handling  that  the  young  roisterer  now  reformed 
so  rapidly  developed. 

My  visit  to  Pacific  Garden  Mission  hap- 
pened to  fall  upon  the  night  of  the  36th  anni- 
versary of  the  founding  of  Pacific  Garden  Mis- 
sion, and  I  looked  about  me  with  wonder  upon 
that  dingy  room  out  of  which  such  marvelous 
influences  are  proceeding.  Monroe  was  lead- 
ing the  singing  with  a  tenor  voice,  now  some- 
what frayed  but  still  effective.  The  spirit  of 
the  gathering  was  not  what  one  ordinarily  asso- 
ciates with  a  meeting  in  a  rescue  mission.  The 
occasion  had  brought  scores  of  reformed  men 
and  women  together  from  all  over  the  city 
and  various  parts  of  the  country.  These  well- 
dressed  folk  with  cheer  and  the  signs  of  right 
living  abundant  in  their  clothes  and  features, 
afforded  a  sharp  contrast  to  the  fringe  of  bums 

226 


A  CHICAGO  WONDER-WORKER 

at  the  back  and  a  group  of  shrinking  women 
who  sat  by  themselves.  It  required  consider- 
able imagination  to  realize  that  these  well- 
dressed,  comfortable  looking  middle-class  folk 
had  most  of  them  entered  the  Mission  as  mem- 
bers of  one  or  the  other  of  the  two  contrasting 
groups.  The  whole  air  of  the  meeting  was 
one  of  jollity.  There  were  no  groans,  no 
pratings  about  sanctifications  and  holiness;  no 
pleading  for  second  blessings;  no  traces  or 
signs  of  theological  dogma  or  sectarian  bias. 
The  atmosphere  was  one  of  cheery  comrade- 
ship with  God  and  with  each  other. 

Monroe  was  moving  to  and  fro  upon  the  lit- 
tle platform,  now  reading  the  Bible,  now  pray- 
ing or  calling  upon  some  one  else  to  do  so ;  now 
cracking  a  joke  or  telling  a  touching  story, 
or  perhaps  singing  a  verse  of  song  and  mo- 
tioning to  the  audience  to  join  in  the  chorus. 
He  appeared  to  be  enjoying  himself  hugely. 
So  did  every  one  else,  excepting  that  mute 
fringe  at  the  back  of  men  who,  as  they  say  at 
the  Mission,  were  apparently,  "all  in  with  sin." 
Once  Monroe  sang  the  "Church  in  the  Wild- 

227 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

wood,"  with  such  rare  sympathy  as  to  bring 
tears  to  the  faces  of  many.  The  order  of  the 
service  was  change,  continual  change.  Songs 
were  short,  prayers  were  short,  speeches  were 
short;  scripture  readings  likewise.  Every- 
thing seemed  to  be  in  vibration ;  everybody  was 
in  tune;  yet  nothing  appeared  to  be  studied 
and  one  felt  no  sense  of  strain.  It  was  some 
time  before  I  appreciated  the  skill  and  the 
method  with  which  Monroe  was  leading.  The 
spontaneity,  the  rapid  alternation  of  touches  of 
sympathy,  humor,  lightness  and  pathos,  were 
all  skilfully  engineered  by  him.  When  the  at- 
mosphere threatened  to  become  sombre,  he 
threw  a  joke  in,  or  a  slang  remark  that  brought 
a  smile.  When  the  levity  appeared  about  to 
prevail  he  called  for  a  touching  solo,  or  got 
a  man  on  his  feet  who  sounded  a  serious  note, 
and  then  turned  him  off  just  in  time  to  keep 
the  spirit  and  the  interest  of  the  meeting  poised 
and  expectant.  If  Harry  Monroe  can  do  with 
a  thousand  people,  what  he  did  that  night  with 
two  or  three  hundred — and  those  who  know 
say  that  he  can — then  he  is  undoubtedly  one 

228 

' 

•     'A      » 


A  CHICAGO  WONDER-WORKER 

of  the  most  skilful  leaders  of  assemblies  in 
America. 

The  utmost  good  humor  prevailed.  One 
convert  of  the  Mission  chose  to  celebrate  the 
occasion  in  rhyme.  He  appeared  upon  the 
platform  and  began  to  unroll  a  long  reel  of 
manuscript.  A  shade  of  apprehension  flashed 
across  the  faces  of  the  people. 

"Oh!"  exclaimed  Harry;  "it  looks  like  a 
piece  of  wall-paper."  Everybody  laughed, 
and  the  poet  took  his  cue.  His  verses  were 
by  no  means  dull  and  he  galloped  through  them 
quickly. 

"Not  so  bad  as  I  thought  it  was  going  to 
be,"  twitted  Harry,  at  its  conclusion.  Again 
everybody  laughed,  and  none  more  loudly  than 
the  poet. 

Behind  the  pulpit  was  the  shadow  of  a 
woman  with  a  crutch  beside  her  chair.  Most 
of  the  time  through  the  singing  and  the  speak- 
ing and  the  laughing,  her  eyes  were  closed  and 
her  lips  were  moving  in  prayer. 

"Let  us  all  bow  while  Mrs.  Clark  prays," 
said  Harry. 

229 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

The  fragile  woman  tottered  to  her  feet. 
Every  eye  was  riveted  upon  her.  This  was 
Sarah  D.  Clark  whose  consecration  to  the 
cause  of  the  broken-spirited  had  not  once  failed 
in  thirty  and  six  years,  though  an  accident 
had  prevented  her  from  attending  regularly 
during  the  past  year.  Everybody  knew  the 
story  of  her  devotion.  Everybody  marked 
the  whitening  of  her  hair,  the  wasting  of  her 
features,  and  everybody  thought  this  might  be 
ber  last  anniversary  with  Pacific  Garden  Mis- 
sion. She  murmured  her  prayer — short  like 
the  others.  As  she  sank  into  her  seat  the  hand 
of  Harry  Monroe  was  beating  the  air  rhyth- 
mically and  the  audience  were  singing: 

"Grace  flowing  for  me,  Grace  flowing  for  me; 
O  wonderful  grace,  flowing  from  Calvary." 

Then  he  shifted  swiftly  to, 

"How  I  love  Him,  how  I  love  Him, 
Since  he  bled  and  died  for  me." 

After  which  the  testimonies  began.  And 
such  testimonies!  There  were  scores  of  them 

230 


A  CHICAGO  WONDER-WORKER 

— men  who  stood  up  and  pointed  back  in  time 
to  the  day  when  they  were  converted,  or 
around  into  space  to  the  very  chair  or  spot 
upon  the  wall  or  pillar  upon,  near  or  against 
which  they  had  been  when  their  decision  was 
reached.  All,  too,  had  the  chronology  of  their 
conversion  carried  down  to  the  present. 
"Thirty-one  years,  five  months  and  seventeen 
days;"  "sixteen  years,  one  month  and  two 
days;"  or  it  might  have  been  only  "five  years, 
four  months  and  fourteen  days,  and  right  by 
that  post  over  there,  etc."  Thus  the  stories 
went  and  they  carried  tremendous  conviction  in 
the  joyous  simplicity  of  their  narration. 
Without  exception,  although  these  reformed 
folk  were  talking  to  comrades  who  knew  their 
former  condition  well,  they  touched  with  ex- 
treme delicacy  upon  the  specifications  of  their 
past  sins,  and  with  brightness  and  enthusiastic 
love  of  detail  upon  the  circumstances  of  their 
conversion. 

A  young  woman  stood  up  and  began  to 
speak.  Her  face  was  refined  but  marked  by 
a  terrible  seriousness.  The  light  in  her  eyes 

231 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

was  abundant  witness  that  she  had  come  off 
more  than  conqueror  in  her  battle  with  tempta- 
tion, whatever  it  was. 

"Street-walker  when  she  came  in  here,"  whis- 
pered a  voice  in  my  ear. 

A  handsome  young  man  stood  up  in  the  rear 
of  the  hall.  His  face  was  bright,  and  his  man- 
ner unusually  engaging.  A  wife  and  child  sat 
beside  him.  He  spoke  with  rare  charm. 

"A  professional  thief  at  ten  years  of  age — 
has  spent  seven  years  in  prison  in  two  separate 
terms;  converted  here  five  years  ago;  now  the 
crack  salesman  of  one  of  the  greatest  business 
houses  of  Chicago,"  whispered  the  voice. 

This  was  marvelous.  These  were  miracles 
beside  which  the  raising  of  the  dead  seemed 
less  important.  One  man  of  eighty-one, 
speaking  with  the  enthusiasm  of  thirty,  told 
how  he  had  been  converted  in  that  mission 
thirty-five  years  ago;  and  how  with  health  of 
body  and  spirit  was  at  once  a  travelling  sales- 
man and  a  personal  evangelist. 

As  he  finished  speaking  the  audience  began 
to  sing: 

232 


A  CHICAGO  WONDER-WORKER 

"Travelling  home,  travelling  home, 
Led  by  Jesus  we  are  travelling  home." 

A  number  of  fine  matronly  looking  women, 
bearing  evidence  that  they  came  from  well- 
ordered  and  well-nourished  homes,  added  their 
testimony.  As  one  of  these  sat  down  the  audi- 
ence broke  out  with : 

"Jesus,  what  a  friend  for  sinners! 
Jesus,  lover  of  my  soul." 

"The  keeper  of  a  bawdy  house  when  the  mis- 
sion found  her,"  whispered  my  voice.  It 
seemed  unbelievable ! 

There  was  a  greater  and  greater  use  of  song. 
The  meeting  was  approaching  its  climax. 
Monroe  was  guiding  it  carefully  now,  lifting 
it,  swinging  it,  this  way  and  that  as  the  great 
Rocky  Mountain  stage  drivers  used  to  lift  and 
swing  their  teams  in  and  out  and  up  and  up 
over  the  mountain  trails.  Monroe  held  the 
reins  carefully.  His  eyes  had  narrowed  till 
they  were  only  slits ;  their  glances  were  darting 
here  and  there  over  the  audience,  and  espe- 
cially boring  into  that  fringe  of  human  wreck- 

233 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

age  which  crowded  itself  into  the  back  seats, 
or  sifted  to  and  fro  in  the  standing  groups. 
Monroe's  hands,  with  their  short,  stubby 
fingers,  kept  moving  in  the  air,  as  if  he  were 
feeling  the  temperature.  With  his  marvelous 
power  of  intuition  he  had  located  certain  strug- 
gling souls  in  the  audience.  He  was  watch- 
ing, watching,  watching!  At  just  the  right 
moment  he  would  let  down  the  net.  Sud- 
denly the  testimonies  closed.  A  quick  rollick- 
ing song  burst  forth  for  a  moment,  was 
checked,  and  a  solo  began  from  a  voice  clear 
and  sympathetic,  with  notes  that  seemed  to 
deliberately  search  out  the  hearts  of  men  and 
women  on  the  floor  and  then  abruptly  lifted 
themselves  in  lark-like  soaring  circles,  as  if  the 
very  souls  of  those  despairing  were  being 
borne  upward  on  the  wings  of  song. 

But  still  the  eye  of  the  little  wonder-worker 
played  over  the  audience  like  a  hypnotist.  Be- 
fore the  song  was  quite  concluded,  an  almost 
imperceptible  motion  of  the  leader's  hand  had 
waved  her  into  the  back  ground,  and  while  the 
barely  finished  notes  trailed  off  into  nothing- 

234 


A  CHICAGO  WONDER-WORKER 

ness,  Harry  Monroe  was  making  a  short,  ear- 
nest appeal,  for  men  and  women  who  wished 
to  be  helped  to  hold  up  their  hands  for  prayer. 
The  appeal  lasted  no  more  than  a  minute. 
The  waiting,  searching  gaze  of  the  mesmeric 
eye  played  over  the  audience  for  less  than 
thirty  seconds.  Then  a  short  prayer  was  of- 
fered, and  the  leader  said  abruptly: 

"The  audience  is  dismissed." 

Instantly  he  and  his  workers,  both  male  and 
female,  who  had  been  distributed  strategically 
about  the  hall,  were  getting  to  the  sides  of  the 
men  and  women  whose  hands  had  been  raised, 
speaking  with  them,  and  leading  them  for- 
ward. Amid  the  buzz  of  conversations,  amid 
the  clump  of  feet  and  the  scraping  of  chairs, 
each  worker  with  his  or  her  subject  was  kneel- 
ing, talking  to  them,  trying  to  get  out  their 
stories,  to  ascertain  the  springs  of  their  action, 
and  if  possible  to  induce  them  to  open  the 
flood-gates  of  their  feelings  in  prayer. 

In  a  very  few  moments  it  was  all  over.  I 
watched  Harry  Monroe  at  the  door  making 
friendly  and  necessary  disposition  of  the  last 

235 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

of  them.  Thirty-two  years  ago  he  had  come 
in  that  door  a  conscience  haunted  criminal,  and 
had  gone  out  a  saved  man.  Had  any  such 
miracles  been  wrought  to-night?  I  did  not 
know.  Harry  did  not  know.  One  only  knew. 

But  Harry  Monroe  seemed  to  read  my  ques- 
tion in  the  blank  look  I  gave  him  as  he  turned 
around. 

"You  never  can  tell,"  he  said.  "Mel.  Trot- 
ter came  in  here  like  one  of  those,  and  he  went 
out  as  they  have  gone." 


236 


JACOB  INLOW  and  prisons  knew  each  other 
well.  His  picture,  front  and  profile,  was  to 
be  found  in  many  albums.  Certain  minute 
measurements  of  his  body,  together  with  inti- 
mate details  of  his  physique  not  casually  ob- 
servable, were  a  part  of  the  first  hand  data  of 
penology  in  several  States.  On  the  books  of 
the  institution  which  to-day  opened  its  familiar 
doors  to  him,  he  had  record  of  three  prior  visits 
of  successively  increasing  length. 

But  there  are  some  things  to  which  a  man 
never  does  get  used.  With  an  affected  noncha- 
lance that  deceived  not  even  himself,  Inlow  went 
through  the  motions  of  hair-cut  and  bath,  and 
stood  imperturbably  while  his  Bertillon  was  re- 
checked.  It  was  noon,  and  a  group  of  striped 
convicts  lounged  in  the  yard  and  cast  curious 
eyes  at  the  new  figure  in  parti-colored  tailor- 

237 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

ing,  which  appeared  just  then  in  the  office  door. 
In  them  Jacob  Inlow  recognized  his  own  kind. 
Quite  logically  he  drifted  across  the  yard  to  the 
tigerish  looking  line  which,  by  the  mere  shuf- 
fling of  feet  and  the  shifting  of  legs,  opened 
and  engulfed  him. 

"  'Llo,  Jake !"  they  gutturalled,  crowding 
round.  " Whad  y '  bring  with  yuh  ?" 

This,  in  convict  circles,  was  the  language  of 
good  form  for  prefacing  an  interrogatory  as 
to  the  number  of  years  of  one's  sentence. 

"All  of  it,"  Inlow  croaked,  with  a  dry  husk 
in  his  voice,  and  this,  on  Jake's  part,  was  again 
the  prison  patois  for  a  sentence. 

"What  t'  'ell!"  muttered  the  group  in  gloomy 
sympathy. 

As  for  Jake,  he  shouldered  his  way  through 
and  sat  down  upon  a  bench,  with  his  elbows 
on  his  knees  and  his  head  in  his  hands,  his 
shoulders  humped  over  and  himself  presently 
lost  in  moody  abstractions.  Coming  back  al- 
ways took  him  hard.  This  time  it  took  him 
harder  than  ever. 

" All  of  it  1"  All  of  life !  All  of  liberty,  all 
238 


"ALL  OF  IT" 

of  the  blue  sky  and  the  open  road  and  the 
wide  tossing  sea;  all  of  the  singing  of  birds 
and  the  prattle  of  children;  all  of  the  eager 
surge  and  throb  of  the  mighty  pulsating  life 
of  the  world  of  to-day.  All  of  it — and  yet,  not 
quite  all;  because  for  months  his  mind  had 
been  obsessed  by  one  mechanical  idea  that  re- 
fused to  be  barred  out  even  by  the  clanging 
doors  of  steel. 

The  man  was  an  inventive  genius.  He  had 
the  imagination  of  a  wizard.  When  he  closed 
his  eyes  he  saw  wheels  turning,  he  heard  cogs 
clicking  and  the  soft  play  of  delicately  ad- 
justed bearings,  and  observed  the  manipula- 
tion of  keys  with  the  emergence  of  a  slice  of 
tinted  paper  carrying  certain  disc-shaped  per- 
forations at  irregular  intervals  over  its  sur- 
face. These  perforations  were  not  at  random 
but  in  accordance  with  a  code.  The  machine 
was  one  to  make  check-raising  forever  impossi- 
ble. All  his  life  Inlow  had  been  going  to  jail 
for  check-raising.  To  perfect  the  invention 
and  build  the  first  machine  would  take  years 
and — money!  The  inventor  knew  but  one 

239 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

simple  method  of  getting  money.  It  was  the 
irony  of  that  fate  which  jests  at  genius  that 
Inlow,  to  get  the  money  to  build  the  machine 
to  prevent  check-raising,  himself  raised  a  draft 
of  a  down-state  bank  from  an  unassuming 
eight  dollars  to  an  entirely  prepossessing  eight 
thousand.  While  Jake  divided  with  his  con- 
federates and  prepared  to  locate  a  secluded 
shack  in  the  hills  where  he  could  hammer  and 
file  and  drill  to  his  heart's  content,  officers  fol- 
lowed the  broad  spoor  of  his  crime  to  the  very 
heels  of  the  criminal. 

It  was  dark  when  the  officers  came  upon 
him.  Inlow  was  not  alone.  There  was  an  ex- 
change of  shots.  An  officer  was  killed.  In- 
low  himself  was  taken  readily,  but  his  accom- 
plice escaped.  No  weapons  were  found  upon 
the  captured  man,  but  his  confederate  who  was 
unknown  to  the  police  had  vanished  com- 
pletely, and  the  blood  of  the  slain  man  de- 
manded a  victim.  Jacob  Inlow  was  charged 
with  the  killing.  He  sat  in  the  dock  and  heard 
his  accusers  tell  the  story  of  it,  heard  them  read 
his  record  of  felonies  from  sea  to  sea,  and  then 

240 


"ALL  OF  IT" 

stood  up  and  stared  stolidly  while  the  judge 
gave  him  "all  of  it." 

While  the  other  convicts  were  marched  away 
to  their  afternoon's  task,  Inlow  brooded  un- 
sociably  in  the  yard  till  lock-up  time.  The 
lock-up  always  affected  his  imagination 
strongly.  To  him  the  thrilling,  age-long  mo- 
ments in  the  death  chamber  alone  could  have 
surpassed  it  for  tragic  elements.  He  closed 
his  eyes  and  pictured  it  with  morbid  fascina- 
tion. It  started  out  of  his  mind  like  the  reels 
of  a  motion  picture.  There  were  the  huge 
cell-houses,  tier  on  tier,  with  iron  railed  plat- 
forms running  in  front  of  each  row  of  cells. 
There  were  the  men,  marched  out  from  supper, 
and  lounging  expectant  in  the  yard.  Sud- 
denly the  prison  bell  clanged  discordantly. 
Instantly  there  was  the  scurrying  of  the  gray- 
striped  forms,  and  stairways  creaked  and  plat- 
forms vibrated  with  the  shuffle  of  many  feet. 

"Lively,  there!"  called  the  guards. 

Abruptly,  as  if  the  men,  monkey-like,  clam- 
bered straight  up  the  sides  of  the  buildings, 
they  pattered  along  the  platforms  and  disap- 

241 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

peared  into  the  black  holes  in  the  wall,  while 
the  steel  doors  with  hideous  clangor  closed  in 
quick  succession.  It  was  a  ghastly  transfor- 
mation scene !  A  moment  ago  the  face  of  the 
building  was  alive  with  darting,  brindled 
forms.  Now  the  three-tiered  pile  is  a  living 
tomb  from  which  there  comes  not  the  rustle 
of  a  foot-ball,  not  the  murmur  of  a  voice,  not 
the  creaking  of  a  hinge.  The  very  soul  of  the 
convict  was  hushed  behind  that  awful  mask  of 
gloom.  And  yet,  Jacob  Inlow  knew  that 
within  those  solid  cubic  yards  of  brick  and 
stone  and  steel  and  concrete,  were  the  twitch- 
ing forms,  the  seething  souls,  the  restless 
brains  and  the  darting  eyes  of  men. 

The  picture  was  almost  more  realistic  than 
the  thing  itself.  Jake  rubbed  his  eyes  and 
tried  to  shut  away  the  dismal  vision,  by  think- 
ing more  particularly  of  himself.  He  was 
now  a  year  under  fifty.  He  had  prided  him- 
self that  he  was  young  for  forty-nine.  The 
snap  of  youth  was  in  his  eye,  the  elasticity  of 
it  in  his  carriage  and  movements.  The  prison 
life  ages  men  fast,  but  it  was  his  boast  that 

242 


"ALL  OF  IT" 

all  his  years  "behind"  had  never  broken  his 
spirit.  To-day,  however,  he  was  old  and 
broken,  yet  felt  that  it  was  not  the  prison  nor 
even  the  thought  of  it  which  had  bent  his  spirit, 
but  the  judge  who  had  given  him  "all  of  it." 

The  afternoon  seemed  very  long — the  idle 
afternoon.  To-morrow  he  would  be  at  work. 
To-night  they  would  put  him  in  a  single  cell. 
No  cell-mates  for  Jacob  Inlow !  He  could  be 
sure  of  that,  for  they  knew  him  of  old,  that  his 
capacity  to  stir  up  trouble  was  illimitable. 
Jacob  had  never  assimilated  in  prison  society. 
He  was  like  a  spoonful  of  nitric  acid  in  the 
salad  dressing.  But  Inlow  would  welcome 
the  solitude  of  a  single  cell,  for  plans  were 
swiftly  forming  in  that  cunning  brain  of  his, 
and  those  resilient  spirits  were  already  on  the 
rebound. 

But  they  did  not  leave  him  in  solitude  during 
the  day.  They  put  him  to  work  in  the  ma- 
chine shop,  for  Jacob  was  exceedingly  clever 
with  tools.  He  could  get  action  out  of  wheels 
and  cogs  that  stood  still  for  every  one  else.  It 
was,  therefore,  a  foregone  conclusion  that  the 

243 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

foreman  would  demand  him  the  moment  he 
learned  that  Jacob  was  in  the  prison.  It  was 
also  a  foregone  conclusion  that  trouble  would 
start  when  Jacob  did,  for  he  had  the  same  mar- 
vellous capacity  for  clogging  the  mechanism 
of  prison  discipline  that  he  had  for  making 
machinery  run.  But  the  prison  officials  were 
willing  to  take  chances  on  this,  trying  by  repri- 
mands, transfers,  withdrawals  of  privileges, 
and  even  by  straight  jackets  and  "solitaries," 
to  undo  the  damage  that  he  did  to  the  prison 
social  order,  while  the  man  himself,  with  grease- 
stained  hands,  a  scrap  of  waste  in  his  hip  pocket, 
his  cap  over  one  ear  and  his  cunning  eyes  peer- 
ing cannily  into  the  intricacies  before  him,  with 
wizard-like  precision  was  undoing  the  wrongs 
that  careless  handling  had  done  to  the  lathes 
and  looms  and  cutters  and  stitchers. 

This  arrangement  also  suited  Jacob  well. 
It  put  him  in  touch  with  tools  and  materials 
necessary  to  build  his  machine,  for  he  was  de- 
termining to  build  it  surreptitiously,  under  the 
very  eyes  of  the  guards.  This  also  brought 
him  into  relations  with  the  twenty  convicts  in 

244 


"ALL  OF  IT" 

the  machine  shop  and  into  occasional  contact 
with  the  convict  operators  of  the  machines  from 
every  part  of  the  plant,  who  were  continually 
coming  in  about  their  mechanical  difficulties. 
These  men  were  thus  foreordained  to  be  Ja- 
cob's messengers  to  the  outside  in  ways  of 
which  they  wot  not. 

And  now,  too,  in  the  furtherance  of  his  plans, 
Jacob  busied  himself  in  every  spare  moment 
with  such  rude  drawing  materials  as  were 
available.  As  the  months  lengthened  into  a 
year,  and  in  every  unoccupied  hour  he  was  en- 
gaged with  his  drawings,  it  began  to  be  a  joke 
around  the  shop,  a  furtive  joke  to  be  chuckled 
over  when  Jacob  could  not  hear.  Toward  the 
end  of  the  second  year  the  foreman  laughed 
openly  as  he  peered  over  Jake's  shoulder  at 
the  sheet,  continuing  to  chuckle  brazenly  as  he 
gazed,  for  the  coarse  paper  was  filled  from  end 
to  end  and  from  side  to  side  with  finely  drawn 
lines  that  indicated  bars  and  wheels  and  rat- 
chets and  traction  rods  and  cogs  and  pawls, 
the  several  parts  of  Jacob's  great  invention, 
the  name  and  object  of  which  he  cunningly 

245 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

guarded.  However,  the  work  never  appeared 
to  get  any  further  than  drawings.  This  was 
the  joke.  This  was  why  the  foreman  laughed. 

Perhaps  the  foreman  would  not  have 
chuckled  quite  so  long  if  he  had  known  that  a 
duplicate  set  of  those  drawings  had  gone  out 
of  the  prison  the  day  before,  sewed  up  in  a 
bale  of  jute  bags,  and  that  an  old  woman,  pick- 
ing up  coal  on  the  railroad  tracks,  had  hung 
about  the  little  station,  moiling  furtively 
among  the  bales  as  they  stood  on  the  freight 
platform,  till  she  came  upon  one  marked  quite 
inconspicuously  with  a  smutty  cross,  and  that 
when  she  trudged  away  finally  with  her  sack  of 
coal  upon  her  shoulder,  she  clutched  that  dupli- 
cate set  of  drawings  in  her  bosom. 

But  the  time  was  coming  for  Jacob  Inlow, 
the  convict,  to  laugh.  Each  week  he  received 
through  the  mail  a  bundle  of  newspapers,  ad- 
dressed in  a  cramped,  uneven  hand.  The  week 
after  the  drawings  went  out  Jacob  found  upon 
the  wrapper  that  carried  his  papers,  an  incon- 
spicuous, smutty  little  cross.  When  he  saw 
this  he  laughed,  not  the  hearty,  wholesome 

246 


"ALL  OF  IT" 

cachination  that  rings  out  of  the  soul  of  a  man 
who  lives  in  the  open,  but  a  dry,  ghostly  chortle 
that  died  half  apologetically  upon  the  lips. 

That  night,  too,  Inlow  lay  upon  his  bed 
wakefully  and  dreamed.  He  heard  the  whirr 
and  click  of  wheels  and  caught  a  vision  of  a 
huge  factory,  grimy,  smoking,  busy.  He  saw 
lathe  rooms,  buffing  rooms,  finishing  rooms  and 
erecting  rooms,  all  busy  with  men  and  women 
who  were  building  his  machines.  Dray  loads 
of  them  were  going  to  the  depots.  The  drays 
bore  the  same  name.  At  the  right  hand  of 
every  cashier  of  every  bank  of  every  city  in 
the  world  where  banking  exists,  he  saw  his 
machine.  Himself,  too,  he  saw,  honored  and 
respected,  placed  in  society  and  in  the  life  of 
the  community  in  which  he  resided.  He  saw 
his  house  upon  a  hill,  with  walks  and  lawns  and 
flowers.  He  saw  a  woman  with  the  weathered 
face  of  hardship,  gradually  softening  when  the 
harsh  winds  of  misfortune  no  longer  blew  upon 
her.  He  saw  her  step  grow  light,  and  a  kind 
of  beauty  come  back  to  her  once  more,  when 
fear  flitted  from  her  eyes,  and  she  was  sur- 

247 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

rounded  only  by  those  who  hastened  to  obey 
her  wish.  Motor  cars  came  and  went  from 
his  door.  He  saw  golf  links  stretching  out 
behind,  and  in  front  at  the  foot  of  the  hill  that 
faced  the  sea,  a  yacht  was  anchored  in  a  cove, 
and  her  pennant  carried  upon  it  a  strange  de- 
vice. It  should  be  a  picture  of  his  machine, 
but  was  not  clearly  discernible  from  the  broad 
piazza.  It  seemed  too  small.  It  looked  like 
a  spot.  He  rubbed  his  eyes  and  craned  out 
his  neck,  but  bumped  a  grey  and  wrinkled  head 
against  the  harsh  concrete  lining  of  his  cell. 
His  dream  crumpled  up  like  an  egg-shell. 
The  shattering  of  it  was  painful  in  the  extreme. 
The  walls  of  the  cell  came  dismally,  oppressively 
close.  The  narrow  misery  and  meagerness  of 
it  was  appalling.  He  looked  over  its  appoint- 
ments critically,  distastefully.  The  stingy  lit- 
tle looking  glass  was  warped  and  distorted  the 
features  that  gazed  into  it.  His  water  pail  was 
rusted.  The  cheapness  and  coarseness  of  the 
linen  upon  the  bed  cried  out  that  it  was  convict 
made  for  convict  use. 

Yet,  the  very  next  day  a  convict,  going  out  to 
248 


"ALL  OF  IT" 

work  in  the  quarry,  carried  in  his  shoe  a  pecu- 
liarly shaped  bit  of  wood  cut  from  a  cigar  box, 
which  exactly  corresponded  to  one  of  the  de- 
tails upon  Jacob's  drawing.  The  woman  who 
gathered  coal  would  find  it  under  a  loose  rock 
at  the  edge  of  the  quarry,  and  following  care- 
fully the  drawing,  would  fit  it  into  the  mar- 
vellous machine  which  was  to  grow  bit  by  bit 
and  week  by  week  under  her  hand  in  her  own 
hovel,  from  the  brain  that  was  creating  it. 

Reflecting  upon  this  at  night  as  he  lay  upon 
his  back  staring  upward  into  the  blackness  of 
his  cell,  Jacob's  dream  of  the  night  before  came 
back.  Presently  his  convict  bed  was  in  the  east 
room  of  a  mansion,  and  its  gas-pipe  head  and 
foot  had  become  burnished  brass,  while  the  ce- 
ment walls  of  his  cell  had  moved  farther  away 
and  were  tinted  and  shaded  by  artist  hands. 
The  luxury  and  lure  of  the  beautiful  filled  all 
his  picture. 

The  years  had  begun  to  walk  along  steadily 
now,  and  the  prison  officials  were  surprised  to 
realize  that  Jacob  had  been  strangely  docile  for 
a  long  time.  In  the  past  trouble  had  started 

249 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

like  circling  wavelets  from  the  restless  soul  of 
Inlow,  but  it  was  not  so  now.  For  five  years 
and  more  he  had  toiled  placidly  at  his  bench,  al- 
ways amusing  himself  between  times  with  those 
ever  present  drawings  which  had  ceased  to  be  a 
joke,  and  were  now  regarded  quite  reverently 
by  all  as  a  mark  of  the  strange  aberrations  of  an 
acute  mind.  They  did  not  discern  the  reason 
for  Jacob's  contentment — did  not  know  it  was 
because  oddly  shaped  bits  of  steel  and  wire  and 
wood  were  still  rinding  their  way  out  the  prison 
through  devious  channels  and  into  a  shack 
where  a  gray-haired  woman  felt  her  way  pa- 
tiently, painstakingly,  with  seamed  and  grime- 
stained  fingers,  over  crude  drawings,  often 
doubting  and  uncertain,  but  always  finally 
building  the  piece  firmly  into  the  fabric  of  the 
machine. 

True,  the  time  for  Jacob  was  long,  very,  very 
long;  but  the  hope  also  was  great — very,  very 
great.  What  matter,  therefore,  if  transporta- 
tion was  of  necessity  slow  and  irregular  and  un- 
certain? These  were  his  difficulties.  He  had 
set  himself  doggedly  to  overcome  them.  He 

250 


"ALL  OF  IT" 

was  overcoming  them.  There  were  nine  hun- 
dred and  sixty-four  separate  parts  in  his  ma- 
chine. Sometimes  a  piece  outward  bound,  was 
lost,  and  he  was  long  in  learning  of  it.  It  was 
disappointing  to  find  out  on  the  under  side  of 
the  wrapper  that  carried  his  weekly  papers,  a 
faintly  traced  number  which,  when  pressed 
against  his  oil  lamp  at  night,  read,  "361 — ." 
That  minus  sign  meant  that  part  No.  361  had 
gone  astray  or  been  broken. 

But  the  man  persisted — persisted  while  his 
hair  whitened  and  his  frame  bent — persisted 
through  the  years  until  one  long  day,  pressing 
his  wrapper  against  the  lamp  he  read:  "964+." 
That  plus  sign  opposite  964  meant  that  the  last 
part  had  been  received  and  put  in  place.  The 
machine  was  finished.  Moreover,  the  wrapper 
of  his  paper  contained  certain  strange  perfora- 
tions. The  convict  placed  these  perforations 
over  the  key  on  the  side  of  his  drawings.  They 
gave  his  personal  description — as  he  was  when 
he  entered  the  prison  walls  with  the  great  idea 
in  his  mind.  It  was  not  his  description  now, 
not  by  any  means, — but,  the  machine  worked! 

251 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

It  was  finished  and  it  worked!    He  had  the 
evidence. 

Joy  surged  through  the  dry  veins  of  the  old 
man  until  they  seemed  to  crackle.  Ashamed 
of  such  emotion,  he  gulped  hard,  and  opened 
his  paper  to  read.  The  date  line  seemed  to  be 
the  only  thing  on  the  page.  It  actually  ogled 
him.  He  gazed  back  at  it,  stolidly,  as  he  had 
gazed  when  the  judge  gave  him  "all  of  it." 
But  he  was  thinking  deeply  now,  as  he  had  been 
thinking  deeply  then.  "July  27,  1911." 
Eleven  years!  Eleven  years  had  passed  since 
first  he  began  to  send  out  those  bits  of  wood  and 
metal,  and  eleven  years  is  long  when  a  man 
is  already  past  the  middle  life.  Besides  a  year 
inside  is  worse  than  two  elsewhere  for  aging. 
Eleven  years! — eleven,  since  the  woman  out- 
side had  begun  faithfully  to  gather  coal  upon 
the  railroad  tracks.  But  now  she  would  go 
away.  Now  would  come  the  really  anxious, 
waiting,  nerve- wracking  time.  Now  his  part 
was  done.  Now  he  must  wait  for  others  to  do 
theirs.  They  had  proven  themselves  faithful. 
Would  they  prove  themselves  capable? — the 

252 


"ALL  OF  IT" 

woman  who  had  been  his  patient  pal,  and  the 
man,  Skinny  Martin,  who  would  have  been  in- 
side doing  life  on  his  own  account  if  Inlow  had 
told  all  the  truth  that  day  in  court.  Would 
they  prove  capable  of  patenting  his  invention, 
of  organizing  a  company  and  putting  it  on  the 
market  and  gaining  such  headway  in  its  promo- 
tion that  the  National  Bankers'  Association 
would  come  to  the  Governor  of  the  State  and 
say: 

"Jacob  Inlow  is  a  public  benefactor.  He 
has  atoned  for  his  crimes.  He  is  entitled  to 
liberty  and  citizenship  and  emoluments,  to 
honor  and  the  fruits  of  his  wonderful  inven- 
tion." 

Time  alone  could  tell. 

The  next  morning  as  Jacob,  pencil  in  hand, 
stood  at  his  bench,  by  sheer  force  of  habit, 
checking  over  the  greasy,  year-stained  roll  of 
his  tracings,  he  said  to  the  foreman: 

"I  don't  want  to  work  to-day." 

"Why?"  asked  that  person,  naturally. 

"Celebratin',"  answered  the  old  man, 
huskily,  dropping  his  eyes  as  a  shameful  flush 

253 


of  pride  overspread  the  prison  pallor  on  his 
cheeks. 

"Celebratin*  what?"  snapped  the  foreman, 
impatiently. 

"My  machine  is  done,"  answered  Jacob,  so- 
berly. 

The  foreman  looked  into  the  convict's  face 
curiously,  looked  and  saw  upon  it  a  kind  of 
glory  such  as  might  be  upon  the  features  of  a 
man  who  had  reached  the  first  stage  of  realiza- 
tion of  an  age-long  hope.  The  foreman  did 
not  laugh  this  time,  for  he  had  come  to  a  kind 
of  respect  for  old  Jake  and  had  learned  to 
humor  his  vagary. 

"Oh,"  he  exclaimed,  understandingly ;  "sure. 
I'll  speak  to  the  Captain  of  the  Yard  about  it." 

And  he  did,  trudging  up  to  the  office  to  say: 

"Cap !  I  wish  you'd  give  Inlow  a  day  in  the 
yard.  I'm  afraid  the  old  boy's  goin'  dotty  on 


us." 


"All  right,"  said  the  Captain.     "Send  him 
out." 

It  was  just  a  common  river-front  saloon. 
254 


"ALL  OF  IT" 

The  machine  was  placed  on  the  end  of  the  bar. 
A  tall  man  with  nervous  eyes  and  a  flowing 
gray  mustache,  whose  face  indicated  that  he 
had  seen  full  as  much  of  the  darker  side  of  life 
as  of  the  brighter  stood  with  an  arm  about  it. 
The  contrivance  higher  at  one  end  than  the 
other,  with  all  its  strings,  and  keys,  looked  as  if 
it  might  have  been  the  crude  model  of  the  first 
adding  machine.  The  man  had  a  supply  of 
blank  drafts  and  a  fountain  pen,  and  when  he 
had  succeeded  in  gaining  the  attention  of  any 
man  who  looked  like  a  possible  investor,  he 
pushed  a  blank  draft  over,  saying: 

"Fill  that  out,  please,  for  any  amount  you 
wish,  making  it  payable  to  yourself,  and  let  me 
show  you  something." 

This  done,  he  thrust  the  draft  into  the  ma- 
chine on  the  top  of  which  were  rows  of  keys, 
rudely  rounded  out  of  wood  like  the  heads  of 
clothespins.  On  these  heads  were  printed  let- 
ters and  numbers,  and  even  short  words  such  as, 
"Light,"  "Gray,"  "Dark,"  "Weight,"  etc. 
The  demonstrator  turned  a  little  crank,  pushed 
a  key  here  and  there,  turned  the  crank  back 

255 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

again  and  drew  out  the  draft.  Various  per- 
forations appeared,  where  discs  of  paper  half 
the  size  of  the  end  of  a  lead  pencil,  had  been 
clipped  out.  From  beside  the  machine  a  key- 
card,  carefully  lined  and  lettered  with  pen  and 
ink,  was  produced. 

"Put  the  draft  on  the  key-card  and  watch  the 
numbers  seen  through  the  holes  and  the  printed 
words  on  the  margin,"  was  the  next  instruction. 

The  check-writer  did  so,  and  read  through 
the  discs  and  by  means  of  the  key -words  the  ex- 
act amount  of  the  draft  in  figures,  and  a  com- 
plete description  of  himself  to  whom  it  was 
payable. 

As  he  looked  up  in  wonder,  the  demonstra- 
tor, said  with  pride : 

"Couldn't  raise  or  switch  on  that  draft  any- 
where in  the  world  that  this  machine  was  in 
use,  could  you?" 

"You  sure  couldn't,"  would  be  the  admission 
of  the  draft-maker. 

Among  those  who  looked  on  at  these  demon- 
strations, was  Aaron  Bright.  Bright  was  a 
civil  engineer  with  some  mechanical  genius  on 

256 


"ALL  OF  IT" 

his  own  account  and  considerable  promoting 
ability.  He  had  made  a  little  money,  and  ex- 
pected to  make  more.  Moreover,  he  had  the 
reputation  on  the  water  front  where  he  did  a 
small  contracting  business,  of  being  absolutely 
square. 

"Whose  is  it,  and  where  did  it  come  from?" 
asked  Aaron,  who  was  a  lithe,  clear-faced  man, 
standing  squarely  on  his  feet  as  he  talked. 

"It  was  invented  by  a  convict — a  life  termer 
in  the  state's  prison,"  replied  Skinny.  "I  been 
tryin'  for  a  year  to  place  it  and  I  can't  make  it 
go.  I'll  get  sore  and  sell  the  blamed  thing 
some  day  to  somebody  for  twenty  dollars  and 
let  her  slide.  Jake  can't  kick.  I  give  his  old 
contraption  a  square  try." 

"Has  it  been  patented  yet?"  asked  Aaron, 
who  was  fingering  it  experimentally,  while 
closely  scrutinizing  every  detail  of  the  exceed- 
ingly clever  yet  clumsy  contrivance — clumsy 
because  of  the  crudity  of  the  materials  which 
the  inventor  was  compelled  to  use  in  the  manu- 
facture of  his  model. 

"No,"  answered  Skinny.  "I  want  to  find  a 
257 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

backer — some  man  who  will  patent  the  ma- 
chine, share  and  share  alike  with  the  inventor, 
and  go  to  manufacturing  it." 

Bright  looked  shrewdly  at  Skinny  Martin. 

"What  have  you  got  to  do  with  it?"  he  asked. 

"Nothin' — not  a  blamed  thing — I'm  payin'  a 
debt,"  averred  Skinny,  with  frankness. 

Bright,  not  too  unsophisticated  to  guess  the 
nature  of  the  debt,  turned  his  eyes,  which  were 
lighting  with  enthusiasm,  once  more  upon  the 
machine. 

"Bring  her  over  here  to  the  table,"  he  said, 
"and  let's  watch  her  perform  some  more." 

It  was  noon-time  again  in  the  prison  yard. 
A  slat-like  figure,  newly  encased  in  convict 
garb,  was  drifting  across  from  the  office  to  the 
lounging,  zebra  group.  A  figure,  old  and  thin 
and  worn,  suddenly  started  up  to  greet  the 
new-comer. 

"Skinny!"  he  ejaculated,  excitedly. 

"Jake!"  mumbled  the  latest  addition  to  the 
colony,  shamefacedly. 

"What  for?"  asked  Jake,  aghast. 

258 


"ALL  OF  IT" 

"Raisin'  one,"  confessed  Skinny,  sourly. 

"D'  you  get  the  writin's,  the  contracts  from 
this  guy,  Bright?" 

"Nothin',"  muttered  Skinny,  grumpily. 
"They  picked  me  off  in  the  night.  Railroaded 
me,  too  I" 

"You  rum-soaked  fool!"  blurted  Inlow, 
bearing  down  hard  on  Skinny's  weakness. 
"Thank  God  the  woman's  got  some  sense. 
She'll  turn  it  for  me  yet,  if  you  haven't  thrown 
it  clear  away." 

"The  old  girl  come  across,  too!"  observed 
Skinny,  turning  away  as  if  not  caring  to  look 
upon  the  face  of  his  friend,  when  this  piece  of 
information  hurtled  into  his  brain. 

Jacob  Inlow,  old  and  somewhat  bent,  sank 
down  upon  the  bench  under  the  weather-house 
in  the  open  yard.  For  long  he  stared  at  the 
ground  in  miserable  silence.  Skinny  was  sit- 
ting not  far  away.  At  length  hope  stirred 
again  in  the  breast  of  the  inventor. 

"Wha'd  she  bring?"  he  asked,  hoarsely. 

"Seven,"  muttered  Skinny,  without  turning 
his  head. 

259 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

Seven.     It  was  too  long  to  hope. 

"That  guy'll  rob  me,"  he  said  weakly. 
"They  got  me  down  and  out.  S'  help  me  God, 
they  have!" 

The  foreman  of  the  machine  shop  began  to 
notice  a  great  change  in  his  prized  expert. 
Jake's  mind  seemed  to  be  slower.  His  fingers 
were  all  thumbs.  Delicate  work  entrusted  to 
him  was  spoiled.  Simple  problems  vexed  his 
brain.  Through  it  all  he  toiled  harder  than 
ever.  The  old  man  was  game.  He  moiled  at 
the  short  tuft  of  grizzled  hair  upon  his  fore- 
head till  it  became  a  mere  wisp,  as  he  puzzled 
over  his  work.  At  night  they  had  to  force  him 
from  his  bench.  He  rushed  eagerly  to  his  tools 
in  the  morning. 

Finally  one  day  they  took  him  from  his 
machine,  took  the  drills  out  of  his  hands  and 
the  work  from  before  his  eyes.  The  fore- 
man sent  him  into  the  yard.  The  next  day  he 
was  not  in  the  machine  shop  detail.  With  a 
score  or  more  rags  and  tags  of  criminal  popula- 
tion, he  went  outside  the  walls  to  work  in  the 

260 


"ALL  OF  IT" 

prison  gardens,  little  more  than  a  mere  beast  of 
burden. 

But  while  the  tigerish  gray  line  went  over 
the  hills  to  the  gardens,  the  Warden  was  read- 
ing a  letter  from  the  Governor.  The  com- 
munication was  a  very  terse  one.  "Send  me 
the  record  of  Convict  Jacob  Inlow,"  it  said. 
And  the  Warden  sent  it  promptly. 

A  week  after  this  a  tall,  clean  built  man,  with 
a  frank,  open  face,  called  upon  the  Warden. 
He  said  his  name  was  Bright. 

Mr.  Bright  carried  a  machine  under  each 
arm.  One  was  a  beautiful  thing  of  nickeled 
steel  and  gleaming  enamel,  delicately  and 
gracefully  constructed,  and  the  bearer  placed  it 
with  pride  upon  the  leaf  of  the  Warden's  desk. 
The  other,  which  he  placed  beside  it,  was  a 
thing  of  strips  and  strings  and  wooden  pegs, 
the  model  which  Bright  had  first  seen  upon  the 
end  of  the  bar  in  the  river-front  saloon. 

The  Warden  was  himself  that  smooth,  well- 
groomed  type  of  alert  young  professional  man, 
that  our  country  breeds  to-day.  He  had  none 
of  the  bloat  and  bluster  of  a  machine  politician 

261 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

about  him.  It  soon  became  plain  that  he 
viewed  his  office  as  a  mission  to  the  men  in  the 
prison,  and  nothing  else.  He  looked  at  the 
two  machines  upon  his  desk  and  lifted  his  brows 
inquiringly. 

"That,"  said  Mr.  Bright,  laying  his  hand 
upon  the  model,  "is  one  of  the  most  useful  and 
remarkable  machines  ever  devised.  It  came 
out  of  your  prison.  It  is  patented  in  the  name 
of  the  inventor,  Jacob  Inlow,  who  I  understand 
is  serving  a  life  sentence.  He  is  my  partner. 
I  have  come  to  ask  for  the  privilege  of  showing 
him  his  own  machine,  which  he  has  never  seen 
before." 

The  Warden  looked  politely  incredulous. 

"If  you  have  been  led  to  believe,"  he  said, 
"that  any  such  complicated  piece  of  machinery 
as  that  could  be  devised  and  produced  in  the 
prison  and  taken  out  of  the  walls  without  my 
knowledge,  you  have  been  grossly  deceived. 
It  is  entirely  out  of  the  question.  Inlow  is  a 
skilful  mechanic,  but  slightly  off,  mentally. 
He  has  a  mania  for  drawing,  and  I  think  has 
talked  of  a  very  intricate  mechanical  device 

262 


With  a  low  cry  he  leaped  forward.     Page  263 


"ALL  OF  IT" 

which  he  expected  to  build  and  patent,  but 
nothing  but  drawings  ever  came  of  it.  As  a 
matter  of  fact  Inlow's  mind  is  now  failing  rap- 
idly. A  month  ago  he  began  to  lose  his  nerve 
and  go  all  to  pieces.  Yesterday  we  had  to  take 
him  off  the  machine.  To-day  he  is  doing  field 
duty.  I  feel  certain,  Mr.  Bright,  that  in  some 
way  you  have  been  deceived." 

"Will  you  send  for  the  man  and  let  his  own 
demeanor,  and  his  own  story  convince  you  of 
the  truth  or  falsity  of  my  statement?"  asked 
Mr.  Bright,  in  an  even  incisive  voice. 

"Certainly,"  answered  the  Warden. 

"Jake,"  he  said,  when  the  old  man  came. 
"This  is  Mr.  Bright.  He  is  interested  in  you." 

The  old  convict  gazed  curiously  for  a  mo- 
ment from  one  man  to  the  other,  and  then  his 
eyes  lit  up  as  he  caught  the  glitter  of  the  ma- 
chine of  nickeled  steel  where  it  rested  on  the 
desk.  With  a  low  cry  he  leaped  forward,  and 
then,  stopped  abruptly.  He  remembered  that 
he  was  a  prisoner. 

With  folded  arms  he  stood  waiting,  and  look- 
ing, not  where  his  eyes  wished  to  rest,  but  into 

263 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

the  face  of  the  Warden.  It  was  an  unusual  ex- 
hibition of  the  effect  of  a  life-time  of  prison  dis- 
cipline. The  old  man's  knees  were  trembling 
in  his  eagerness.  His  striped  shirt  heaved  vio- 
lently under  the  thumping  of  his  aged  heart. 
Yet  he  did  not  move. 

The  Warden  nodded,  and  he  crossed  to  the 
desk  at  a  bound.  With  a  peculiar  humming 
sound  that  was  like  the  purr  of  an  animal,  he 
passed  his  hands  over  the  machine,  taking  in 
every  line  of  its  beautiful  proportions,  gloating 
over  it  with  eyes  full  of  fondness.  As  he 
looked,  the  prison  worn  face,  with  its  pasty 
pallor,  with  its  ghastly  humps  and  hollows,  that 
were  almost  like  the  features  of  a  skeleton, 
seemed  to  take  on  a  fullness  and  a  radiance. 

Oddly  enough  he  did  not  at  first  seem  to  no- 
tice the  old  model.  When  he  did,  he  picked  it 
up  and  scanned  it  curiously,  but  also  critically. 
A  smile,  half  cynical  and  half  triumphant, 
played  about  his  lips;  but  when  he  saw  the 
many  awkward,  woman-tied  knots,  with  which 
the  several  parts  had  been  bound  together,  his 
face  sobered  and  he  put  it  down  and  gazed  at 

264 


"ALL  OF  IT" 

it  with  a  sort  of  reverence.  After  all,  however, 
his  ideal  was  the  polished,  merchantable  ma- 
chine. That  to  which  he  had  become  attached 
during  the  long  years  of  his  imprisonment  was 
not  a  model,  not  a  thing  of  patches,  of  make- 
shifts and  crudities,  but  a  glowing  ideal.  The 
polished  thing  nickeled  steel  and  enamel  was 
the  realization  of  his  dream. 

"Inlow,"  said  the  Warden,  gravely;  "where 
did  this  machine  come  from?" 

Inlow  laid  a  hand  upon  the  thing  of  wood 
and  wire  and  strings  and  scraps,  and  pointed 
silently  toward  the  prison  walls. 

The  Warden,  looking  at  the  frail  and  broken 
figure  of  the  man,  and  the  glory  of  hope  real- 
ized that  had  transformed  his  face  for  the  mo- 
ment at  least,  could  find  no  rebuke  in  his  heart 
for  him.  He  had  been,  himself,  in  charge  of 
the  prison  but  a  short  time.  Under  his  milder 
and  constructive  rule,  Jacob  might  have  built 
his  machine  in  the  shop  with  every  facility  af- 
forded him,  so  long  as  it  did  not  interfere  with 
his  other  work,  and  the  Warden  could  not  even 
secretly  regret  that  the  prisoner's  ingenuity 

265 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

had  been  able  to  circumvent  the  harshness  of 
the  older  system  which  he  himself  abhorred. 

Abruptly  Jacob  seemed  to  realize  that  he 
owed  something  to  the  man  who  had  made  pos- 
sible the  consummation  of  his  hope.  He 
crossed  to  Mr.  Bright,  and  offering  his  worn 
hand  timidly,  he  murmured  in  low  sincerity : 

"You  are  my  partner.  I  thank  you,  sir, 
for  what  you  have  done." 

Turning  to  the  Warden,  he  said : 

"I  sho.uld  like  to  go,  now,  sir." 

There  was  a  catch  in  his  voice  as  he  spoke, 
and  a  wistful  expression  on  his  face,  while 
something  which  sparkled,  trembled  in  the  cor- 
ner of  his  eye. 

A  man  becomes  accustomed  to  solitude. 
For  twelve  years  now,  Jacob's  emotional 
storms  of  hope  and  despair  had  all  been  faced 
alone.  Now  he  was  at  the  flood-tide  of  happi- 
ness. He  held  in  his  hands  the  consummation 
of  all  his  hopes,  the  consolation  of  all  his  de- 
spairs, and  he  wanted  to  be  alone. 

The  Warden  understood. 

So  did  Bright. 

266 


"ALL  OF  IT" 

"You  may  go,"  assented  the  Warden,  kindly, 
as  he  pressed  his  call  button.  To  the  orderly 
he  said :  "Pass  Inlow." 

The  Warden's  office  was  some  distance  out- 
side the  prison  walls,  but  every  step  of  the  way 
was  commanded  by  armed  guards  in  towers  or 
on  look-outs  on  the  walls.  The  convict,  with 
a  machine  on  either  arm,  his  beaming  eyes  con- 
stantly turning  solicitously  from  one  to  the 
other,  like  a  boy  with  a  pair  of  pets,  trotted  to- 
ward the  great  prison  gate.  The  orderly 
thrust  his  head  out  of  the  window  and  attracted 
the  attention  of  the  nearest  lookout.  Then  he 
pointed  to  the  bent,  hurrying  form,  and  held  up 
the  flat  of  his  hand.  It  was  a  repetition  of  the 
Warden's  order:  "Pass  Inlow."  The  signal 
was  waved  down  the  line  from  guard  to  guard 
to  the  prison  gates  and  the  great  doors  of  steel 
opened  inward. 

An  hour  later  they  found  him.  He  was  in 
his  cell  upon  his  knees,  with  the  two  machines 
side  by  side  upon  his  narrow  prison  bed  and 
spread  out  around  them  were  the  sheets  of  his 
drawings.  The  old  man  had  a  pencil  in  his 

267 


THOSE  WHO  HAVE  COME  BACK 

hand  and  was  lovingly  checking  over  his  de- 
tailed sketches,  while  now  and  then  he  turned 
from  the  tracings  to  a  particular  part  of  the 
machine  and  felt  it  over  affectionately,  caress- 
ingly, with  his  sensitive  fingers.  The  light  in 
his  eye  was  still  bright. 

As  the  two  men  pressed  into  a  narrow  door, 
almost  shutting  out  the  light  of  day,  the 
Warden  placed  in  the  convict's  hand  a  long, 
legal  looking  document. 

"From  the  Governor,"  he  said,  as  Inlow  took 
it. 

With  trembling  fingers  the  latter  unfolded  it 
upon  the  bed  between  the  two  machines,  and 
then  read  it,  slowly,  laboriously,  as  if  his  mind 
groped,  too  full  with  the  richness  of  one  great 
idea,  to  instantly  absorb  another.  He  had  fin- 
ished its  perusal  and  was  staring  almost  stup- 
idly at  the  great  seal  of  the  State  with  its 
wealth  of  red  and  gold,  when,  suddenly,  like  a 
sunburst,  the  light  of  understanding  broke 
upon  his  face. 

"There's  one  like  tHat  for  the  woman,  too," 
said  Mr.  Bright. 

268 


"ALL  OF  IT" 

Inlow  gazed,  wide-eyed,  for  a  moment,  and 
then  slowly  he  lowered  his  face  upon  the  paper, 
while  an  extended  arm  encircled  either  ma- 
chine. As  he  felt  them  in  his  grasp,  and  the 
cool  parchment  upon  his  face,  a  dry  sob  of  joy 
broke  from  his  heart. 

It  was  the  Governor  this  time,  who,  in  quite 
a  different  sense,  had  given  him, — 
—"all  of  it." 


THE  END 


269 


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